Life Unexpectedly

I Should have Come With A Warning Label

2012-01-24T02:54:00.004-05:00

I am a menace. To myself, that is. The rest of the planet is safe....well, unless you happen to be walking behind me, close enough to catch a flailing arm as I attempt a hack-kneed swan dive in the middle of the sidewalk, complete with a set of shrieking howls resembling those of mating alley cats. And dear God help you if you are in front of me when I'm attempting to negotiate the spinny door at the hospital or board the escalator in the mall. (stupid things should have harnesses) There will be causalities.  Why, do you ask, do I provide such entertainment on a regular basis for the throngs that gather?

Oh baby, I was born this way.

While reaching for the salad dressing the other night, I was stopped by my husband's: "Oh my WORD honey, what did you DO to your hand?!?" I'm totally blank. "Hmmm?" I ask. "Look at your hand!" he points to the fingers clutching the blue cheese like I'm about to be robbed. Upon closer inspection, I began to count....two burns, a slice across my ring finger, my first knuckle was missing, and there is an inch and a half gash down the center of my hand. Admittedly, it was a hot mess. "This is the new sexy." I told him.

I remember losing the knuckle while adjusting my stationary bike. (imagine my husband laughing out loud as I'm attempting to explain this. "You got hurt riding a stationary bike?!") The gash was acquired while cleaning under the microwave which had a previously unknown broken plastic thingy that removed my flesh like Satan's melon baller--of course I irritate it every time I get my phone out of my pocket or put gloves on, so I've jacked it up even more. The rest?

Not. A. Clue.

It's been like this for--ever. Today is my birthday and I have been a poster child for band aides and neosporin for so long I should demand shares in the company! (right now my left knee is a stunning rainbow of color as I dropped the largest drawer in the guest room dresser two days ago and caught it with my leg) I think I've developed some kind of pain nerve memory block. Honestly, you could hold a gun to my head and demand to know how I bruised the entire back of my arm last week and I would have to die. I have NO recollection whatsoever! I fall UPstairs. I trip over carpets like a drunk ballerina with a death wish. I now have an escort that seems to follow me around Home Depot, I think they were worried there would be lawsuits.

Years ago I went to visit one of my best friends in Florida. It was to be a romp of a weekend; fly down on Friday, back on Sunday. I left a chipper, smiling girl with a bounce in her step. 48 hours later I returned with the skin missing from half my face (scraped it along the bottom of a pool), limping (pulled my hamstring in a wild game of cosmic bowling), and gasping like an emphysema commercial as I had caught some plague while guzzling the apartment complex pool water. I had to get shots.  Missed a week of work to recover from that "two day girl get-a-way."

I couldn't watch The Hangover. It was entirely too real.

I think we should have punch cards for the doctor's office...."nine visits and the tenth one is FREE!"

I own enough ace bandages to mummify Paula Deen.

Scrapes are sexy.

The Ties That.......Strangle?

2012-01-19T01:12:00.036-05:00

Relationships. They're what give the turning of this planet meaning. So much more than sunshine and water; humanity's soul has taken thousands of years of mornings and afternoons and breath-taking moments--and made them matter. As we birth and raise and laugh, as we weep and bury and mourn--we create. Music, poetry, paintings......roses that bloom in the dead of winter. We have altered the world, built and destroyed civilizations.....and tangled within it all, we have loved.

Sometimes it's romance that shakes the soul; it burns with an igneous passion composed of shared breath and melded flesh. Sometimes it's the wonder of new life and a protectiveness that would fight to the death against any odds. Sometimes it's friendship so deep--founded on experiences be them of pain or joy--that bind two hearts together. Regardless, it's the life that is shared, that shines in the darkness.

But share....carefully.

I have traveled. I have loved and married; divorced and learned, and loved more deeply the second time. True friends have been few and treasured, but neighbors and acquaintances have flowed through my life in a river of color bringing laughter and frustration depending on the day. In one thing I have been careful....to draw distinction. Intimacy makes one vulnerable. Knowing who has your back and who doesn't is vital.

With the invention of Facebook, we have taken the cherished noun "friend" and morphed it into a verb. An action. Something done with strangers. Now I completely understand that this fabulous land of "like" has a million uses. Publicity, causes, networking, real estate and recipe clubs. But I wonder as we are changing the very meaning of that word....will it be replaced? Or will we just forever alter what a "friend" is?

I found myself before the bright screen of my laptop late one night.....contemplating my "friends." I scrolled through the list...ticking off in my mind, "college, high school, neighbor...." And my own distortion, my own...corruption, reared its loathsome head into view. For the very plastic nature of fb had absorbed me. Why indeed is it merely a shiny promenade of new pictures and proud announcements? Why does it feel so shallow and flimsy.....because it's not made for true friends. It was created for strangers. And most of us are about 176 degrees from real on it.

We friend co-workers and fourteenth cousins and people we went to third grade with--curiosity gripping us in its wiry talons. "I wonder if they married? Do their kids have red hair too? Did he get fat?" And once on this slippery slope we careen down an avalanche that leaves us buried beneath a mountain of "friends." You awake upon a stage. Do you know your cue? Don't mess up your lines...

I did the unthinkable. I "unfriended" 48 people. Do you know, not a single one contacted me as to why....except one. My sister.

WHAT?? You unfriended family?!? Is that legal? (will there be umbilical whiplash from your parents??) But as I told my sister in a letter the next day, "We may be sisters, but we are not friends."

I am done. I am over. I am rejecting connections by obligation. Yes--obligation. The actions taken to avoid offense. The checks cashed on guilt or shame or duty. Contracts with conditions and penalties if not fulfilled. Obligation.

With this new year I have been....examining. My heart, my time....my sense of worth. I have asked difficult questions. Why do I maintain contact? What do we offer each other? Does good....kindness....something healthy come from our relationship? Dear Lord, do we even communicate on a regular basis or is it just me putting my day, my heart-aches, my triumphs, my tears out there....and them watching? Critiquing?

Am I strong enough? Can I withstand obligation? Can I face neighbors and co-workers....my family? Can I say that their relationship with me is one of unrequited vulnerability? I want more authenticity....I want a return on my investment.

No family is perfect. History is difficult to overcome and childhood can be cruel. However, I've decided that I want today--which is all we really have--to matter. No waste. No counterfeits or masquerades. No pretending to agree when I don't or that we are something we are not.

Family is family, and co-workers are co-workers and dammit, friends are friends! Blessings to you if you can overlap some of those, my mother is absolutely one of my closest friends. But in this world of cheap imitation everything....friendship needs preservation.

It is a gift of choice. Not obligation.

Beyond the Framed

2012-01-10T00:42:00.024-05:00

I was browsing through the artwork at a lovely shop recently.  There was a couple next to me also clicking through the frames, commenting on such and whatnot. He seemed slightly bored, she alternated looking with picking lint off her black cable sweater. Suddenly she exclaimed, "Oh, here it is! I've always wanted this for the hallway!" Triumphantly, she placed the coveted prize in her cart with a smile the Cheshire Cat would have admired. There, encased in lacquered wooden dark cherry swirls and divots, was the familiar scripture, "Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy...."  Nearly everyone could quote this; it's amazing how truth is passed on and repeated and eventually written in lovely calligraphy, framed, and hung upon a wall.

I didn't find anything to captivate me so with my basket on my arm I headed toward the check-out, thoughts of something grilled and cheesy filling my hungry mind. Shifting from foot to foot, we stood.  It seemed like there were twelve of us, but I'm sure it was only my imagination.  And then I hear a voice--the same voice--demand a spot ahead of me.

"I was here before you!" the lady in black exclaimed, pushing her buggy into another cart, knocking it into the magazine display and causing the "5 Hour Energy" shots to totter dangerously atop it. "Um, I don't think so." The other cart owner replied, somewhat hesitantly. "Oh no," Mrs. Black responded, "I'm CERTAIN I was here first, I was just getting a water over there." It was late. Everyone in line was hungry, (the collective sound of stomach growls was beginning to sound like a wolf pack) and buggy owner #2 just didn't seem up to a brawl with Mrs. Black. (granted, she did look rather intimidating with her hair sprayed so stiff it resembled a helmet to enter battle with)  And so we stood longer, staring at the back of a black sweater still flecked with lint.

I nestled my bags in the seat next to me, gazing out across the parking lot. The click of the ignition, shift into gear and ease out into the evening traffic. Winter seems murkier this year. Wetter. The holiday lights glittered like stars as I drove home that night. And within me, a fire burned.

I'm a redhead. I own a heavy bag. There is a reason.

I spent several years in my twenties down in Guatemala and Mexico. Working with local churches and orphanages, we helped American college kids to come down and work for several months at a time. We built houses, cleared fields, and swabbed scraped elbows and knees in health clinics. We lived in a large cinder block building with a tiled floor. There were no rugs. No television. No hot water. We had a chess board and a radio and a crazy kitten we had rescued named El Tigre, who ate holes in my socks and chased the roaches.

The only "art" in the living room, was on north wall where someone had taken a black marker, and written that scripture. "Love is patient, love is kind..." However, there was another wall. And upon it was written the first three verses of that chapter in the Bible that come directly before the "love is patient" section. The first three seem to be forgotten. Lost.  They are not quoted nor have I ever seen them framed....

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profits me nothing."    1 Corinthians 13:1-3

Though you have glorious speeches, wisdom and knowledge beyond the ages, invincible faith. Though you give everything to the poor and martyr yourself/time/resources.......but have not love?

You. Are. Nothing.

I am saddened.....I am enraged, by people that know the words. They know the language and they know how to write checks and volunteer at the shelter and adopt a pet. But love? I'm not sure love lives within them.

Love was the only language I could speak in those countries. I remember holding a little girl's hands while they stitched her shoulder back together with minimal anesthetic....and I sang to her. In English. lol She didn't know a word that I said, but as tears sluiced down both of our cheeks, she knew love.

This year I am challenging me. I am challenging you. To analyze your heart. Why do you do what you do?    Ian Percy said, "We judge others by their behavior. We judge ourselves by our intentions."  He nailed this with caustic accuracy. We constantly evaluate what others are doing, but often excuse ourselves because of our rationalizations, our justifications....our explanations. "I cut that guy off in traffic 'cause I was late." "I snapped at the cashier because I had a bad day." "I had to because my husband was waiting." But even when we do good....do we expect a thank you? Is it for the tax write-off or the applause?  Is "Love" and everything that word encompasses, something you plan and act out?  Or does it simply live inside you? In your pores, your breath.

Love isn't always thanked. It isn't particularly clean. It isn't comfortable and rarely convenient. It's often in the smallest of things. The most overlooked gestures. But when the God of the universe planted the seed within us, the magnificent potential that is the human soul.....it was meant to love. Above all, before all, and without filter.

Without love....we are nothing.

The Murder of Magnificent

2011-11-10T02:03:00.008-05:00

Inspirational poetry gone awry. Sentiment with snarkish undertones, apathy all dressed up and parading about as if queen for the day....

Have you ever popped a chocolate into your mouth, your tongue wrapping about its deliciousness; explosions of velvety goodness and then..."Spitoo-ey!" Gag, gasp! "What in the hell was in the center?! Tasted like MOUSE CRAP!"

Death to generic chocolates. And all pretenders.

I despise pretenders. Charlatans and frauds...contemptible. I've actually raised my arm over my head casually during a dinner party and when asked why, I replied, "Savin' the watch...it's gettin' a little deep in here." (thank you mom for that southern gem)

And simply the worst of impostors are the ones that cover themselves in glitter and preen....gag me.

Thus my response to a recent blurb on a facebook page I came across. "I've flown and crashed, lost and won, I've learned my lessons and if you don't like who I am, then you can kiss my ass!"

I was all on board....yes, yes, and then....the flip of the hair and bob of the head and there was probably a finger wagging. This 20-something was all "I am who I am and if you don't like it, blah blah blah..." It's EVERYWHERE! In my classroom, on the bus, it seems to be permeating the very air we breathe.

When did this happen? When did our arrogance surmount our potential?

There was actually a time when self-improvement was a life-long endeavor. When learning and graciousness were pursued until death--and not just for financial gain or career advancement--but for the simple enrichment of the soul, the enhancement of the experience....just to be...more. Becoming a better cook, learning a language, reigning in a sharp temper, practicing patience.....being open to differences and beauty. Self control.

Living was a privilege then, cherished. Our technological advancements have eliminated so many diseases, sterilized our wars, isolated us behind screens. We've become enamored with our own opinions. We've forgotten that this life is not to be wasted on repetitious sitcoms, $5 pizzas, and lite beer! That the soul grows, the spirit blooms....that the potential inside each of us is breathtaking. The possibility of grace, the miracle of forgiveness. Kindness and laughter and giving....going without. Voluntarily.

The richness of humanity is the ability to change by will, not dictated by need.

And yet, the world is swimming with generic chocolates. Bridezillas and Springers and the girl at CVS who shoved her way in front of everyone. Potential so wrapped in layers of arrogance and belligerence that the seed within is suffocating. The magnificence that could be is choking.

The flames of entitlement are scorching our nation, leaving blackened husks where loveliness should have been.

"I am what I am..."

...but you could have been so much more.

.

Gators and Poptarts

2011-11-03T01:25:00.002-04:00

Yesterday morning I was confronted with absolute proof that my darling angelic boys--have horns. And possibly a tail. I suppose every parent at some point faces the human fallibility of their prodigy, but mine slapped me in the face at 8am; shortly after waffles and kisses and "have a nice day!s." I waved good-bye as they left for the bus, one by one, and then went to tinkle. (three cups of joe before dawn will do that to you) And there, staring at me from the bottom of a yellow pool...was Pebbles. Not Bambam, not Fred or Wilma....Pebbles.

Someone had ditched their morning vitamin and forgot to flush. Ooooooh, I was peeved.

A peeved mum in our house leads to lost allowances and days without television...and cold cheese sandwiches for dinner. (seriously, ask my boys, tick me off badly--especially by being ungrateful--and I completely go on strike) Three growing boys used to home cooked menus containing bacon wrapped roasts and homemade bread and scalloped potatoes suddenly reduced to cold sandwiches and apples will surprise and delight you with rapid apologies and changed behavior.

At any rate, confrontations were had, the culprit confessed and handed over the cost of a bottle of Flinstones (about two week's allowance) and promises of future honesty were made. When we don't like something, we discuss. We don't lie, cheat or steal....or flush hard earned money down the toilet, dammit!

However, last night I was shocked repeatedly as glaring examples of exactly that--lying, cheating, & stealing--were paraded across the television screen accompanied by a catchy tune, nifty tag lines, and the ever present laugh track. Welcome to American advertising.

Example 1. Sad boy is about to ingest deplorable poptart when he is rescued by generous girl from such a blunder by her offer to share her delish toaster strudel. How does sad boy respond to this kindness? He snatches both halves of the strudel and runs off yelling, "You can have the poptart!"

Example 2. Famous race car driver is "insured for almost everything" by some insurance company but when he accidentally drives a golf ball through someone's window; famous-wealthy-adult race car driver sneaks off.

Co-workers steal each other's food, wives belittle their husbands, and little Timmy in "time out" plays like madman in the kitchen with no supervision. Twenty minutes of any "tween" show on Nick or Disney elevates destructive behavior, deceit, and theft--all draped in the absolute stupidity of any adult in the room--to entertainment.

And the laugh track runs.

There will always be the discussion about media reflecting reality or dictating it, but I cannot help but wonder as we are setting our children down for "entertainment" that is full of mean girls, moronic adults and a complete lack of responsibility--how can we expect anything different in our own living rooms?

Well.....I refuse to give in. Again. I will block channels our neighbors watch, rampage like a lunatic about stolen yogurt commercials, and attempt to find creative ways to make the consequences fit the crime. Sometimes I feel like I'm piloting a cruise ship on a tranquil sunny sea.....other times I'm barely poling my raft of ruffians in a hurricane while alligators snap at my heels.

Parenthood. Why they make whiskey.

Marrow

2011-10-16T01:04:00.005-04:00

I made soup today. Roasted chicken. And it took 6 hours. Seriously.

I began sometime after the second cup of coffee, but before the third. Pulled the carcass of bones and tendons from the fridge; burnished skin, gelatinous broth congealed to the breast and thighs. Johny Lang, Tracy Chapman, and Nina Simone took turns in the cd player as I listened to the wind blow outside. Something about the cool caress of Autumn's fingers on my cheek leads me to the kitchen every time...

Nearly unconsciously I begin to peel the meat from the bones.

Soon this becomes a personal quest...my fingers sliding along calcium lengths, searching out the divots and undulations that hide the sweetest, darkest meat. Peeling back roasted skin to coax tender slices of salty succulence from their place, separating cartilage from bone, sinew from muscle. The meat drops into the bowl, the bones piling in a mound inside the soup pot. Ribs, back, wings...vertebrae...skeleton abandoned.

Slice of onion, celery ribs with leafy tops, rosemary cut from the chilly planter on the porch--the single lonely herb left next to the brittle husks of basil and crispy sage. Crushed ivory cloves of garlic, black peppercorns tossed into steaming water....the bones sink beneath an an aqueous grave. Soft simmering....tempered heat....rosemary mist. Satisfaction permeates my soul as I leave the room with a last glance toward the windows slowly filling with lovely steam....

Three hours later.

Delicious carcass and vegetable pulp. Broth with....warmth. Depth. Marrow. Drain, chill, skim the fat, smile softly...secretly at the thought of rosemary infused lusciousness. Chopped panchetta into the pot, crisping. Onion, glistening. Fresh celery, carrots, herbs. The broth from lifeless bones, resurrected into liquid gold.

As I stir, I wonder. This afternoon I received a call from a distant friend, we chatted. Upon her asking about my day, I responded, "I'm making soup." She laughed, "Like you open the can, right?" I chuckled softly to myself. As I added crushed sage and fresh rosemary....I wondered if she'd ever had soup--real soup. Soup with love and time and marrow in it.

Like life, soup is so substantial...so basic. But when was the last time you had soup made from the bone? There is...vitality in it. Pain and blood and pulse and joy and movement....life.

Sometimes I feel like Campbells has taken over the planet. Condensed it. The Hallmark channel: "Open can, add one hour of time and the Jack Frost movie and sha-zam--Christmas eve!" Do you remember actually threading needles, making cranberry popcorn strings for the tree while swapping "favorite Christmas past" tales? Before Macys took over? I truly don't mean to sound...old. (chuckle) Or like some Martha Stewart commercial, but there is something missing...

Instant marriages--no such thing. Instant parenting? (take one child, add a wireless device and their own tv...) Friendships, home-making, dinner, holidays....I am internally battling this war against a condensed life. I refuse to give in.

The last step. After the simmer, the softening of vegetable and meat and corn, a cup of cream. Fresh pepper....the aroma fills the house. I go out to get the mail and the 45 seconds it takes to do so--leave me reveling in the warmth of deliciousness as I reenter. Eyes closed....amazing.

Marrow.

Swallow. There now, you're all better.

2011-10-03T15:51:00.034-04:00

Mmmm.....quite the day and it's not even 2:30 on this rainy fall afternoon. I awoke to grumpy children after nearly losing a game of strip poker that surprisingly included my boss, my neighbor, & the mailman. (what, you don't dream like this?) Thank God for coffee makers with timers and toaster waffles--these two things save me from killing the boys on a regular basis. My 94 yr-old grandmother is staying with us for a few weeks to give my parents a break. This experience traverses a scale with a range from "Oh, how darling and cozy as she gets to spend cherished time with her great grand-children doing puzzles and drinking hot cocoa" to "Yes, Gramma--you need to put your teeth in to eat breakfast....no, I don't know where you left them."

Stress?

He left for work, the children packed safely off to school carrying clarinets, clean gym uniforms and lunches. I settle Gramma on the couch for a very LOUD episode of Matlock and Hazel curls up at her feet. I attempt to bike for 20 minutes while watching Grahm Norton.....um, really I drank more coffee. Dressed, found the keys and off to do the shopping, hit the deli, & refill the wine rack. By the time I returned, I distinctly resembled a drowned rat, and the eleventeen trips with bags into the house didn't help matters.

Hot tea, deep breath. I love coming home. I spend actual TIME on how our home smells, hitting up this little import shop for the most delish incense that somehow magically combines clove and exotic spices with sandalwood and brown sugar. Y.u.m. However, beef burgundy was on the menu for tonight (seriously, any reason to open a bottle of wine at noon) and so I began seasoning the beef, browning it till the pan was lined with scrumptious crispy bits. In with the onion, a rasher of bacon for smoky lust, carrots and celery and half (er...um?) a bottle of wine....mmmmm, the aroma was heavenly. After simmering for a few hours, I'll finish it with cream and the boys will love walking through the door this afternoon. I put the bread dough on the back of the stove to rise, get Grandma some lunch and tuck her in for a nap.

Alright, switch up the laundry, sweep the entryway, vacuum the living room....and can I sit now? With a fresh cup of tea, I nestle into a corner of the couch with a magazine a neighbor had passed on. September's issue of Health--sporting a cover which told me I could melt 12 lbs in 28 days without hunger, purchase 8 energy foods, and "YES YOU CAN!" get stronger, cook healthier, and feel amazing every day! Sha-zam, can we just bottle the cover?

And speaking of bottles....

By the time I had turned a mere 20 pages, I was in shock. I went and got a pen and paper and starting on page one, began to write the names of the drugs advertised. Lovaza, Cimzia, Abilify, Lyrica, Orencia, Restasis, Vesicare & Viviscal....twelve all told. This did not include the six suppliment ads promising vitality and sexual fulfillment, the diet pills and programs (5 total) and I haven't even gotten to the FOUR PAGE spread on Botox! Perhaps most frightening was the pull-out two page poster, "Yoga For A Beautiful Body" on which the entire back was two pages explaining Pristiq and the risk vs gain of its consumption.

What. The. Hell?

It was as if this magazine was one long subliminal (??) message that you need drugs. You are not good enough. You are not happy enough or thin enough or have enough eye lashes the way the good Lord above created you. Yet every model for the wrinkle creams didn't have them, and the poor bent over Pristique lady was facing a mirror image of her smiling self. The yoga chick was already in smashing shape and Allergy Woman was rolling about in a hayfield with a hairy dog. If you don't like.....anything....they've got a bottle with a pill for you, baby. The the results are dreamboat! (psssst, remember the titanic....)

I know depression. I divorced my first husband. I have three sons, I therefore understand stress. Anxiety and I sit down for tea once every few weeks. I have been on welfare after that divorce, gone hungry, and worked my ass off to get back on my feet and stand tall. There is no pill for that. I find, in general, that anything easy isn't worth a damn. If a pill can fix it, you're in more trouble than you know. Now PLEASE understand that I am SO glad that we live in a world of modern medicine that actually makes miracles possible. Cancer, diabetes, leukemia--we have amazing medicines that have altered the direction of humanity! (my youngest son, 11 lb hulk that he was, and I would have died if it were not for medicine and
c-sections) And there are times--absolutely--when medication is part of the answer. But a pill without change inside of ourselves--is just a lifelong addiction....dressed up with a prescription.

I suppose, most of all, I am appalled at the message in this magazine whose very title is "Health." It contains zippy recipes for new yogurt smoothies, and a fab way to do squats...but the real message?

Exactly what is healthy?

It is so much more than what is in the mirror, on the scale, in or a bottle. It isn't instant....ever.

How have we lost track of that?

Summer Scraps & Morsels

2011-09-23T01:38:00.020-04:00

When someone asks how my summer was, I'm always a bit lost...um, good? Crazy? Utterly exhausting alternating with euphoric sandwiched between layers of anguish and gaiety? If I could just download blurbs into your head....

Lawn
     If, by chance, you should be so inspired to spray your lawn with "weed killer," be sure to first calculate exactly what percentage of said lawn is actually weeds. If this figure is like in the....85-90% realm, re-evaluate this decision. Or you might just spend two months with a crispy brown yard, frantically planting grass seed, and praying to the lawn god for forgiveness.

Emergency Room
     Holy crap, Scrubs is real. After the adrenaline rush had passed and the gushing waterfall of fear had been reduced to a trickle,  I took a deep breath and leaned back. The previously ignored world outside our curtained cubicle erupted. "You stick the broken leg in 2 yet?" "I gotta drain the fainter in 6." "3 puked again, ya wanna grab some lunch?" "I know, here's the vamp dregs from the neuro--he is SO HOT!" The gum-snapping, glitter-manicured, bad breath-laden crew carried on while I sat quietly watching Him sleep. One of the most terrifying days of my life was just a day at work to them. Perspective is everything.

I never did get to see the hot neuro.

Bird
     The dog barked madly. The boys came running, "Mooo-om, there's a bird on the ground!" Excitement, worry, fear. I dried my hands on the kitchen towel and let myself be drug to the yard. It was tiny. The fluffy head with bright eyes studied me back as I knelt. "chirrrp." Soft, Almost inquiring. The wing was...not right. And the leg missing. Who knew how, there was nothing left to do but provide peace. My garden gloves stained, but smelling of earth and green, scooped the feathered frailty up. I left the boys and dog behind, promising them I find her a place to rest and get better while she and I knew I was finding her a place to die. An old broken tree limb, ferns quickly snapped and layered into a soft nest. She cocked her head as I settled her, eyes on me. Quiet.

I thought of the fragility of life as I sat on the porch with the fireflies that night. I read two stories to the boys at bedtime instead of one.

Horoscope
     This is a direct quote from my horoscope in the Pittsburgh City Paper printed on August 3rd. "Aquarius, you're in a phase when you have extraordinary power to learn from and adjust to the challenges that come from having your buttons pushed by those you care about."   Seriously?? Ummm....bite me. And my buttons.

Dreams
   I love to read, rather fanatical about it actually, but after a few months filled with slightly disturbing dreams I decided to experiment and stuck intentionally to a string of lovely summer books. (Rose Pilchner & Maeve Binchy types)   Filled with laughter and family, they have afternoon tea by the seaside and settle with a whiskey by the fire in cozy cottages as the sun sets, usually with an old dog by their side.

I still dream of vampires under the floor boards, knife fights with three-armed women, and aliens that suck the memories out of my head with a tube attached to my ear. What the hell?

Firestarter
     I set my hair on fire while roasting marshmallows. Twice. What can I say--I am waaaay talented.

Matchbox is from Satan
     While I was much impressed that my self-controlled 12 year-old actually saved up $65 for the nifty new matchbox car with a video camera in it (I mean, allowance is only $5 a week folks) I was not prepared for the immediate loss of privacy this was going to entail. There I was, reading on the porch...quiet, little itch, look up--Sawyer is holding this car, looking at me. "I taped you mom!" he says. And flips it over so I can watch myself on the little screen. And there I am, next to the ivy and rosemary, scratching under my boob. Loooovely.

Zap
     We put an underground fence in for Hazel. (my neighbor....KIDDING!) She's a year old now, half rottie-half shepherd, all crazy pup. I insisted that both my husband and I try the collar out on ourselves (no, not WEARING it, you sicko!) just to make sure we agreed with the level of shock. Whatever you can't do to yourself folks, you shouldn't do to your animals.....well, except fix 'em when they're 6 months old. (although I think my parents really re-thought that one when my sisters and I started dating) So He does it first. "No big deal honey, she'll be fine." Then it's my turn.

I almost wet my pants. Hazel hasn't run off since.

You Dirty Girl

2011-09-13T23:52:00.002-04:00

Spray paint is from heaven, simply put. The defacement of thousands of walls is a small price to pay for the absolutely magical ability to take a decrepit piece-o-crap bookcase banged about since college (grimy white with the bottom four inches stained ew-ish when the basement flooded three years ago), and with two cans of "Satin Espresso" create a brand spank-me new darling cabinet that tucked into the 2nd floor bath next to the claw foot tub (which I also spray-painted) and VOILA! Bath Divine.

Today was lovely. 80* and sunny, the autumn breeze sending golden leaves dancing through the air as I sprayed away in the backyard. Unbeknownst to me, this playful draft was also sending clouds of Satin Espresso across my yard, surprising me with a "misty" paint job on the rear porch (whoops) and tomato plants that now look as if someone sneezed chocolate on them. The dog wised up and bolted for the house.

Five hours later I had proudly arranged my bath, done three loads of laundry, vacuumed, watered plants and chopped veges for dinner. The boys walked in from school and I shooed them quickly out the door--they had dentist appointments asap. We dashed to the office where I sank gratefully onto the plush couch to relax with the latest edition of People for 45 minutes while teeth were polished and sealed.

Our dentist is.....rather posh.The eggplant colored walls of the waiting room were accented with a lush moss green that paired wonderfully with the leather furniture, electric fireplace and bookcases housing nifty statues and old volumes of Shakespear. They don't just clean teeth folks, they look elegant while doing it.

In the midst of this splendor, I suddenly realized the little girl waiting with her mother next to me was whispering.....and pointing at me. I smiled, certain she just noticed my red hair or glasses. Then her mother suppressed a look of confused horror and grabbing her daughter's hand, moved to the farthest seat possible from me.

WTH?

I start down the mental list: deodorant this morning, check. No "bra dysfunctions" baring all, check. (what, this never happens to you?) No dog poo on the shoes, check. And then I see it. My arm....my ENTIRE right arm has been "cloud painted" a smashing Satin Espresso leaving the impression, if one didn't know otherwise, that not only was I dirty....I was downright filthy. I'd had so much to do and yes, I'd washed my hands but I wasn't really paying attention, and I......oh no.

Fighting the blush I knew was raging across my face, I stumbled to the poshy restroom and stared at myself in the tasteful gilt-framed mirror. The entire right half of my face was spotted brown. Down my neck....even a lovely drip-o thing right at my jawline, implying that I was not only dirty, but sticky too. Was that a moth glued to my hair?

There is no handsoap on the planet that removes spray paint. But oh, did I try. Now I was blotchy and dirty. Pulsating red, plague-like splotches covered my face, and a lovely welt had risen on my neck where I had attempted to scrape off the drip with my fingernail...dear God, I was a walking extra for Contagion.

I slunk out to the waiting room and snatched a magazine to hold in front of my face. A handsome man named "Brent" was greeted cheerfully by the receptionist before he came to find a seat. The frantic manner in which he backed away from me, nearly landing in someone's lap, said it all. It was a long 45 minutes. I was a Dirty Girl and there was no denying it.

Crack Attack

2011-09-04T18:39:00.000-04:00

It's been haunting me. My crack. No, not THAT one--although that reminds me of this Eureka Moment I had the other day after whining about the SEVENTH set of oh-so-attractive boxer shorts I'd had to behold while standing in line for a latte. (like seriously guys, if you're gonna flaunt the skivvies, at least make sure they are CLEAN. *shudder*) To which, my darling eloquent pal responded, "just imagine what you'd be a-goggling if they weren't wearing boxers."

"Dear God, I've been so remiss. Please pour out your blessings on the little man--wherever he may be--that invented boxer shorts. Multiply his fruit....and all that."

Fruit of the loom......um....distracted. We'll think more on that.....

But back to The Crack. Here it is....well, was.

See it?? Check out that ceiling. Mmm-hmmm....they don't come that way in the box. Yes, that is indeed the corner of my living room. Beneith it is a flatscreen inside an antique stereo cabinet named Norman. (you don't name your furniture?) And I have had complete nightmares--in color--of the claw foot tub that resides above that crack and the impending doom that is portended by it's presence. (including the 911 calls elicited by my bedeviled bath involving embarrassing awkward moments with the neighbors and entirely too much flesh) Ahem.

So. While some might say it's charmingly ironic (should you do so, I may stab you), my Labor Day weekend has just become laborious. The crack....attacked.

Now the blissful part of this story is that The Leak that really is the culprit here--has been iced. However, as you are lifting your brewski tomorrow, lounging at your end-of-the-summer bash involving grilled hunks of meat and salads with questionable ingredients....take a moment. While He tackles the living room ceiling, I will be grappling the bathroom floor. (no, not ON the bathroom floor--who raised you?!?)

Happy Labor Day, my friends.

Autumn

2011-08-22T16:49:00.001-04:00

An afternoon hidden away in my studio. Cool breezes and the sound of children laughing outside as this last week of summer vacation begins. This season of heat has been hard. I am athirst for autumn's relief.

.
I found a poem I wrote years ago...nutmeg and umber....fall.

.
Autumn's whispered feet drew near
her cloak of colors grand
dragging nutmeg fingers
through trees and sky and land
curling smoke from chimney sweeps
crisp breezes hold the morn
dying branches grace her wind
black and old and worn
the green of grass fades to brown
burnt umber hues the eve
the spice of apple lingers still
as Autumn takes her leave

Echoes

2011-02-22T07:17:00.000-05:00

Upon my easel is a piece of plywood. It has never hung in a gallery, never been the focus of attention, never even noticed. Yet this board is more important, more tangible than my greatest painting. It has seen my soul.
.

Against it I place my my canvases. Gleaming white, they stare blankly back at me, emptiness embodied. I sit across the room tapping my brush against a paintless pallet...waiting. The tornado in my mind, the lists of things undone, the voices of siblings and friends and children must fade. A sip of wine...

A flash. A dream. The music surges and I reach for the plastic tubes of color that litter the shelf. A soft curl of pigment slides into the divot. My hand hovers.

Joy, pain, love....searching, hiding.

Frustration and anger and ecstasy. The emotions of my life spill onto the ivory space, smearing into the images trapped inside of me. The board has seen it all. My sighs of delight at the perfect capture of morning sun; sailoresque swearing at a ruined forest glade. Sometimes I dance when I paint. Sometimes I throw down my brush and leave in fury.

Echoes of every painting I've done are on that board. I can trace them with my fingers. I recognize the color of that ocean sky last year...the black of the cave, the vineyard's emerald leaves. These memories are there--but only for me. It's just nonsense to the world. Like the coffee mug only you know the meaning behind. The last necklace your mother gave you before she died. That picture taken on vacation moments before the disastrous fight you wish you could take back.....only you know.

I wonder at the echoes I'm leaving in my life. In my children, my neighborhood. Do I leave remnants of myself? Fingerprints that stain? On one hand I desperately want to change the world--paint it richer and brighter for my sons....and on the other I would give anything for a giant eraser to rub out my mistakes and impatience.

The echoes of me.

I wonder what they say.

The Wettest Car. Ever.

2011-02-09T02:27:00.000-05:00

Is "wettest" a word? Like "completely soaked to the point of saturation in the absolutest sense." (yeah, I know--sue me for "absolutest")

So I used to drive a Cadillac. Ooooh.....you know those hot commercials with the rockin' babe in skimpy attire that make you wonder if you're going to the store or about to orgasm? (usually there is a tunnel, flashing lights, and glimpses of gleaming metal and a stiletto heeled, perfectly manicured sexy foot pressing the...uh....gas pedal....hang on, gimme a minute....whew)

Um, you can scratch those. Now, I have actually had complete strangers stop me and offer me a check for my car--no smack. (they were usually a tad gangsta with seriously blinding bling) My gleaming, gorgeous, two door, low rider, SOLID GOLD pimp-me-like-you-mean-it cadillac....yes, the bank SECURITY GUARD actually personally ushers me in the lot and comes to check my tires. He's like, "you know, you got a paint chip on the bumper?" I'm like, "Man, it's a 1990--she's sweet." lol

HOWEVER.

There was an expiration date. Didn't they tell you? Your car has one too. It's usually on a really important day. Like your wedding day....or the day you're leaving for vacation. Maybe it's the day you have two dentist appointments (doesn't everyone do this? dammit, get it OUT of the way!), a lunch with a long lost pal (ok, so I drank a shake...stupid novocaine), and a job interview. (pass off the shake stain you drooled as hand lotion.......right...never mind) THAT is the day your car expires.

In two days time, it was over. The right blinker quit working. The breaks began SCREAMING--not squealing like a forked pig--the pig got run over and then they backed up. The driver's seatbelt developed a completely unpredictable ability to unlatch...usually when you're doing about 65. The "gleaming metal" on the outside of the passenger's door came loose--it flapped in the wind like a dying crow until your teeth rattled. The caddie has an awesome air conditioner...the fan stopped. The fan is located somehow behind the entire engine. As in "cash-in-the-kids-college-fund" money just to GET to it--much less replace it. It makes deliciously cold air...that you can feel dribbling over your toes if you do about 70. The dash lights went out.

And the locks would randomly engage. Especially when you were unloading groceries.

The windows....well, apparently there are these plastic clips; they ride in the track up and down inside of the door, attaching them to the gizmo that makes the windows do their thing. They broke. The windows are either up--or if you try to roll them down--they crash with a heart-stopping thunk into the bottom of the door never to be seen again unless you cram your fingers into the slot and physically hoist them up again; a feat only my 6'4" husband has been able to achieve. So the windows are either UP--it's 91* in that lovely August summer in the 'Burg and you redefine "roast;" or the windows are DOWN. Unable to be rolled up until my dear man comes home from work.

There I was, on a broiling humid Monday evening--headed to get the boys, and it began to rain.

Ahem.

Make that, "Dear GOD I am NOT NOAH!!" And everyone is staring. There is enough water coming down from the sky to drown a small army of zebras and both of my very LARGE windows are completely down. Torrents of rain are soaking me--my hair is plastered to my head, glasses fogged, cars hitting "puddles" are sending oceanic waves across my shoulders....

So I went with it. What the hell else could I do? Found some hard core Rage Against the Machine and turned it WAAAY up. I whipped my hair up into a soggy mess on top of my head with pieces curling in the wind, black spaghetti tank straps falling off my shoulders as the mascara smeared across my cheeks. I was HOT. I was "I don't care about your cozy vanilla-scented minivan with your mochachino and booster seats.....I am WET and WILD and ROCKIN'!"

The boys were flabbergasted. They were ecstatic. They whooped and hollered the whole way home. I told them they wouldn't have to take showers.

Love that caddie.

Gesso

2011-01-26T07:02:00.000-05:00

Liquid white forgiveness. Thick, warm.....it drapes my canvases in layers of love, erasing the smeared and awkward. The crooked, the ugly....the failures. Plaster grace, gypsum clemency. I have canvases that have 3, 4...6 different paintings sleeping beneath the one that was finally accepted, hung, and purchased. The gentleman from Florida that took four of my forest series home with him has no idea that lying under the graceful branches of that shady path is a blackened thing. Angry. Two in the morning and four whiskeys and rage...it slumbers in the quiet of the woods.

I've come to treasure that bottle of ivory exoneration. The morning after, when the tears have passed and the light filters through the curtains....I can start again.

Mistakes. We all make them. Some of the landslide errors I've committed have decimated mountains. Tsunamis that have wiped my triumphs from the map...earthquake misjudgements leaving sinkholes and black chasms in my life. I've wept oceans, mashing palms into my eye sockets till there were bruises....redefined regret.
.

Yet we breathe.

The sun rises, the wind blows. Somehow the grass keeps growing and the dog needs fed and you pay the electric bill. We go on.

So tell me....why do I still stumble so? You'd think that I'd learn to leave the light on, to watch my step. Sometimes I feel my snarls are simply hunkered down beneath the bed, festering. Am I going blind?

.
Where is the gesso for life? Is there a magic pigment that will turn my monsters into ghosts? Take away their claws and give them fluff instead of fangs? I have faced them....I have paid. I am tired.

It's not a quest for euphoria, I assure you. I'd settle for peace. I've known the mercy of the Lord, the compassion of friends...somehow though, the monsters are still there. Perhaps they live inside me.

It's begun to snow again. Alabaster flakes blanket the mud and barren branches....gesso from the sky.

Healthy

2011-01-18T04:38:00.000-05:00

It's funny, Websters defines healthy as: possessing or enjoying good health or a sound and vigorous mentality. And yet...I'm beginning to truly believe that your level of "healthiness" is just a direct and somewhat backwards reflection of your level of self-deception. I seem to be surrounded by people who are "making healthier choices"....while they wallow in pits of blackened tar. One friend brags that she spent an hour at the gym working out--and during our 20 minute dialog over the phone, she consumed an entire pint of cherry garcia. Another is discovering "Buddhist peace" while continuing to drown in the suffocating relationship she swears completes her. A fellow artist I know has taken up jogging...because he passes Mrs. Felp's house...and she offers refreshment of a most personal nature.

His wife is thrilled with his new interest in getting healthy.

Life is a maze. We navigate with a slew of handicaps to challenge us. While one might be blind, another has no arms; one limps, one crawls... One has money, another none. Education, experience, hell--just good taste and manners can either put you ahead--or if you are lacking them, behind. So we travel. Questing after a healthy life--after all, health is the "key" to happiness. It matters not the magnitude of financial or relational wealth you possess if you don't have your health. Our media sports laugh-track laden shows that portray deception, ridicule, and exploitation as amusing. Our evening viewing is peppered with advertisements for new medications that have such gruesome side effects as to make one wonder who in the blazes would actually take them. Our salad bars are dripping with thousand calorie dressings, crunchies and toppings which eradicate all validity of wellness from the copious plates being carted by smiling people secretly confused as to why they cannot drop those pounds since they are working so hard to eat healthy.

Exercise, religion, food--has it all become one spiritual quest? Or just a billion dollar scam we all participate in. I suppose it might be...but what are we seeking? Excitement? Satisfaction? Distraction? Perhaps "balance" is the only real "healthy." As each of us indulges our vices, do we make up for it somewhere else? Like benevolent vampires? I wish I knew the weight of it all....does a thriving career balance out a disintegrating marriage? Does giving up a career to "stay home with the children" counteract slim Christmases and canceled vacations? Is being slender worth skipping cheese? (dear God, please say no) Where is the handbook that has the calculated mass of everything? Can someone please write one??

My personal system is called "what would you pay."

My darling mother used to color her hair. And she cut coupons. Buying what was on sale--plus a coupon might save her 3 or 4 bucks! However, the results at times did not resemble those gorgeous Feria commercials. (shudder) There are actually shades of red that should be labeled "Whore in the Store" and "Cheap Corner Hooker Red." One Sunday I asked her, "mum...your hair looks like...well, if I had a magic wand, would you pay me $3 to fix your hair before you go to church?" She looked at me....and then laughed. She swore she'd never use another coupon. What would you pay to have it turn out just right? When you have that horrid migraine, would you pay someone the $15 you'd save to go to the Drugstore, the cheap grocery, and the discount market for everything on your list? That particular day, at that particular time--just pay the extra $15 and get it at one place. Is it worth doing laundry at midnight to spend the evening playing swear-word scrabble? Cutting the lawn in the rain so you don't miss the game? Skip the ice-cream so you can have the brie? What would you pay?

Does sacrifice for iniquity equal healthy?

I'm just like everyone else. I justify, I explain, I rationalize my decisions. I seek to balance my hunger for the nefarious with bean sprouts.

Twenty minutes ago I put Splenda with fiber in my whiskey.

Pressed

2011-01-11T06:37:00.000-05:00

The new year is here. For nearly a week it felt like spring but the cold has returned, shrouding the night in ice and mist. The glitter and twinkle has been packed away in old hat boxes and stacked neatly in the attic. Green and red tablecloths nestled in with holly garland and mistletoe. I'm still amazed at the holiday wonderland that slumbers quietly beneath the eves all summer long. Such magic that in a single day the house is transformed with fairy lights and the smell of clove and spice. The excitement builds...gingerbread houses, foamy egg nog, crystal snowflakes hung from the chandelier.

Perhaps the real wonder is how quickly the Christmas cheer that has surrounded us for nearly two months can be whisked out of sight in mere hours. The house seems to echo a bit.

Either way, here I stand at my ironing board. The old blue cover frayed and stained at one end from spilled coffee on a hurried morning. Ivory damask with a lovely mossy fern pattern lies piled before me. A new season, a new tablecloth.

Tiny flakes of white dance past the window as the hiss of the iron fills the room. Steam rises, the pale cloth smoothing beneath the ferrous plate. The heat feels delicious to my cool fingers.

The rhythmic pass back and forth quiets my scattered mind and I find myself thinking of wrinkles. Sometimes it seems that a significant amount of my time is spent in this quest to eradicate them. Tablecloths and napkins, pants and soft cotton dresses...the crisp white shirts my husband wears to work. Curtains after a wash, the silk scarf I love to wear with my raincoat. The skin about my eyes.

Who decided the lines resulting from decades of laughter should be injected or sanded or peeled from my face? Does it make me look younger...or just that I haven't a sense of humor? Would the world pause if the napkins had furled edges?

I've made no new resolutions this year. Being healthy and loving madly seem to cover just about everything for me, but perhaps I will think more about these wrinkles in my life. Perhaps as they are natural and lovely in their sweet crinkly way...perhaps this is a battle I shall concede.

Happy new year, my friends.

Confessions of a Vitamin Junkie

2010-12-22T09:29:00.000-05:00

As the exec director of several child development centers, a couple years ago I was also building points on my Doctor's "frequent flier" card towards a vacation in Monte Carlo. I was on his top ten list of "Patients with Funny Stories." (usually these included flying boogers, projectile vomit, or parents who insisted that little susie's radiant scarlet eyes were due to a "shampoo incident" and certainly NOT to pink eye) Um....yeah. I laundered my clothing in bleach, snorted hand sanitizer, and used lysol as perfume. (I was partial to Springtime Meadow--so fresh and dewy)

Yet there I was, time after time, sounding like an emphysema patient or chucking monkeys at the porcelain goddess. I'd had it. So ye ole google and I came up with a solution. (exactly what in the hell did we ever do before the Internet??) After looking up `immune system and vitamins' I had come up with a list of goodies that were essential to your health. These included garlic, a, e, the b's, c of course, zinc and magnesium. Off I trundled to the drugstore to purchase a granny-sized seven-day pill holder in a lovely shade of robins-egg blue that I could use as a weapon in a pinch. A regular women's daily as well as additional supplements of the others on the list filled up my basket and nearly cleared out my checking account.

It took almost two hours for me to conquer the child-proof lids and safety seals and dole out a weeks worth of pastel pillege--not to mention assuring my husband that I had indeed not lost my marbles and replaced them with liqui-gels.

Month one passed......wow. Month two....holy wow. YEAR one.....Saint Jehosephat's nads, this is WORKING! Folks, three years and seven months--not a SINGLE cold. Not O. N. E. I have three boys and a husband who have brought home a vast plethora of snot and sniffles, more than one case of the chuckles, and NADA. And then.....

Oh ye hateful arrogance! Smash ye to cinders all who scoff at the anti-bacterial wipes for grocery carts even as ye watch the red-eyed pigmy demon hock up el-mucus-o and finger paint on the handle of the buggy next to you.......ye shall PERISH!

Cough...sputter...gasp.

This week.....for the first time in nearly four years, I have gotten ill. (ahem) Make that, "I have visited the tunnel of light and am clinging to life with broken fingernails and lifevest made from halls wrappers." I've woven a rope from used tissues to tie myself to the brink of sanity. I have had lengthy conversations with the most adorable little asian doc-ette about the color of the crap I cough up. Bigelow Tea has offered me a spot as spokesperson as I've broken the world record--27 cups-o-liquid-love in less than 12 hours. My pee smells like lemons....and menthol.

I have met the maharajah of viral malaise and he whooped my proverbial ass.

It has terrified my kids--they have no real memories of sick mommy. They have also eaten pizza, hot dogs, and cold cereal three meals a day for a week. My husband has been grand and the wonton soup he has brought home by the bucket has been my single joy as well as the only thing I can taste.

I'm still a believer, and still popping the goodies....along with anti-biotics and have begun to have strong feelings for my nasal spray. However, I am praying that this will be an isolated incident...once every four years I can handle--although the holiday timing of this has really jacked up Santa's schedule.

My eldest said from the doorway of my room--afraid to enter, "Too bad it's not halloween mum, 'cause you'd be a really good Darth Vader."

Bone Magic

2010-12-13T04:46:00.000-05:00

"Are we having chicken Mum?" he asked eagerly. "On the bone??" Hopeful eyes sparkled and I laughed, "Yes, my love--on the bone." "Yippee!" he hollered, dancing out through the dining room, off to give the good news to his brothers. He's nine. Sweet still. Blue eyes and a contagious belly laugh and when he hugs you--he really hugs you. Amazing actually, at such a tender age he has learned one of life's luscious lessons.....meat on the bone, is the best.

The snow is drifting past the window, dancing in an endless holiday tango. The last wisps of incense mingling with the scent of pine....the evening aglitter with tinsel and lights. Dinner was seared and then roasted slowly, the nobs of garlic permeating all before relinquishing their firmness, melting into decadent paste. Rosemary infused, wine and butter and onions caressed the meat, tender....succulent.

Indulgence....laughter.....contentment.

I shudder a bit at the packaged meat shelves in the market. I'm blessed to have an amazing butcher close to home--one of the few with hanging sides of beef and daily delivery from organic and local producers. He supplies me with rabbits and lamb and cuts my delmonico steaks two and a half inches thick while I watch. He saves bones for me...filled with buttery marrow, ready to roast and simmer. It's these bones which awakened me to the lost magic of marrow. The creamy center which once pulsed with movement and blood....the essence of life.

Plastic trays of skinless, boneless strips of meat break my heart. Their sterility frightens me. In the name of convenience and cleanliness, we've chosen ease over decadence. Our homes sport kitchens the size of rec rooms with appliances gleaming.....and yet the demand for "take home" Bosten Market, Eat-n-Park, "Applebees on the go" is soaring. "Get that home cooked taste with no effort at all!" Shame on us. When did effort hurt? When did labor become laborious?

I'm trying to teach my children this. Within the snow globe that is a child's world, little else provides such an immediate return on investment. Yes, they save up allowance for prized possessions and they endure our new puppy's craziness, hoping for a calmer companion in the future that won't chew their gloves and eat legos. However, they come running when the clang of pans and pots rings out. 'What are you making Mum? Can I help? Can I watch?" The anticipation is almost tangible as they help roll meatballs and pour in the plum tomatoes, using the masher to break them up. They tear off to play, but return every hour or so to see how high the bread has risen and beg to taste the sauce.

And they cheer when it's meat on the bone.

Perhaps it's the primal urge to tear with our teeth? Sucking and nibbling as we lick our lips and smile sheepishly at one another. Fingers seeking out flesh, sliding along the bones, tearing and pulling and finding deliciousness. Dipping cartilage back into the sauce, tongues catching the drops of liquid ambrosia. I love the sounds of savory satisfaction; giggles and grins and slurping. The boys often play rock-paper-scissors for the last piece, makes me smile every time.

I don't cook every day. The leftovers from today's pistachio crusted rack of venison is going to make a smashing stew tomorrow. Wednesday is pizza night as I've got a painting to finish. And this last weekend, preparing for our holiday bash--you'd better believe my husband took the crew out for Arby's while I was mulling wine and making crab dip. Life is absolutely about balance. We all juggle and spin, attempting to keep eleventeen things up in the air at once. But within that balance, when there is room and time....skip the instant. Brown the chicken quarters till golden, nestle them in the dutch oven with sliced potatoes and onions and sausages and sage. Roast slowly for two hours....

Trust me, it's worth it.

Call Me Sasquatch

2010-12-07T06:44:00.000-05:00

There are two quests that women in our country have. Endless pursuits that millions of dollars are spent upon every year--I swear they are actually part of our nation's fiscal picture. What are these crucial, life-long missions you ask?

The crusade for the perfect push-up bra....and great hair.

Now, I must admit complete and utter failure when it comes to quest one. *sigh* I'm sorry ladies, but my journey down this road was full of potholes and wrong turns, triple padding and once--a deflated "air pillow" that left me a tad lopsided at a black tie affair. In fact, in rebellion against the societal demand for bodacious buxom broads--when I resigned from my executive director position to dance down the lane of unemployed artist, author, and chef--I burned those bras! Well....I donated them to charity--does that count? My husband seems quite happy with his perky athletic wife...even if I do tend to make waves at family functions and Sunday morning service with my unbound self.

Anywho, this brings us to quest two. Great hair. Lotions and potions and creams and treatments....eat meat, drink yeast, coat with olive oil. I was even on a gelatin kick for awhile--until someone told me that jello shots don't count. (damn) In the 80's when Aquanet was the perfume of choice--in true Kelly LeBrock-ish style, my do was phenomenal! I teased and spritzed , creating an auburn halo that could touch my shoulder pads and block the wind....it was simply stunning. Unfortunately, during a college sculpture class that required a piece done with metal...meaning blowtorches and fire....well, I believe I single handidly caused the school to alter the requirements as I set my hair on fire not once, but an impressive three times. Do you know how flammable solid aquanet is?

So a few weeks back, a darling pal regaled me with a tale of long luscious locks after she had begun....HAIR VITAMINS! Who knew?!? Little nuggets of vitamic (pronounce that "vi-tam-ic;" yes, I've just made up a word) power that boost your hair growing capacity by a factor of ten! Shazaaam! Holy Dolly Pardon I am on my way!

Day one: A bit woozy after popping the green tablets-o-hair, but manageable.

Day four: Figured out that eating tuna salad helps the nausea...while grossing out my kids at 6:30am.

Day seven: Began to crave carrots. WTH??!

Day eleven: I passed a mirror and was shocked at the caterpillars on my face! Who put my brows on steroids?!? Took an hour and a half to pluck. Are those tufts in my ears?

Day twelve: Shaved....it looked like I massacred a yeti in the bathroom. Had to go out for liquid plumber. While rinsing the drain I realized I needed to shave.....again. Am I slightly orange?

Day fifteen: Have stopped the pills from hairy hell. The neighbor kid asked if I was growing a play-off beard. Purchased four bottles of Nair.

Day seventeen: Out of Nair.

The moral of this story is, of course, that there is no magic pill. Stick to olive oil and jello shots. I'm staying in until CVS orders more nair.

Anyone got some carrots?

The Price of Good

2010-11-30T04:28:00.000-05:00

There are times in my life when second guessing devastates me. When balance becomes nearly unreachable, when the demand is so much greater than the resource...the only solution is truly a miracle.

Do you believe in God? In His design to make within us....more? More than needed, more than necessary? More than the required, the basic...the obligatory. In a swamp of "barely" and "nominal," when "good enough" seems to replace quality, I am so grateful for those who are and do and give--more.

I received a call last night. Such an incredible friend--and when we rang off, I wept. Quite simply, she does foster care. In addition to adopting a son who was born addicted and carries the repercussions of that, she has repeatedly opened her home to those children who have no where to go. I am stunned by this. They wreck her things, scream, yell, lie and steal....and she loves them with a depth that is beyond me.

She has a brother and sister now. An abhorrent history of sexual and physical abuse, they bring more baggage with them than a child should ever have to shoulder. She's had them a year....and it's killing her. Her health is rough, she's gone back to school to open employment opportunities, and while every marriage has its moments--the stress of three children, life and school and visits and court dates and uncovered expenses....is wearing the flesh from her heart and the patience from her husband. She is so tired. I was rather relieved when she told me they had decided to ask the state to find another family.

And then, last week's visit to the father.....and signs of physical contact. Distraught 3 year-old sobbing and screaming and punching...a hospital visit and medical exams. Tears are streaming down my face as I type this...how, how does a soul sink there? How can it be such a long process to prove, try, defend...2nd chances, broken promises, therapy, deception. Legal tape and procedures and....ultimately, frustration.

There is no one else.

How do you make such a choice? When is the cost too high? From a distance it is a simple thing to offer an opinion....but could you send that little girl back into the dark? Even as your own family is barely keeping above water? I am in agony for this situation, for the innocent children who have been so damaged, and for my closest friend who is entwined.

This world saddens me at times. I can almost fathom the madness of the great artists and poets--if you stare too directly at the dark for long, it seems to close in. And so we have sunrises and seasons and green twigs that bloom lovely. Fireflies and fuzzy kittens and the taste of oranges.

And each other.

Within us sleeps an amazing potential to change and grow. Unlike any other breathing thing on this planet, we can literally alter the universe. Inside how and what we choose is immense power...if we do so with intention. And sacrifice.

Being comfortable is rarely paired with giving.

Ag has changed my life. She has challenged me, humbled me....inspired me. I've never met someone who loves so fiercely....and is so much more.

Amazing....and Elusive Grace

2010-11-22T06:57:00.000-05:00

Mercy. Clemency. To pardon the undeserving. The act of forgiveness.

How often in our somewhat careless society to we ask for grace? Weekly? Daily? For some, hourly? As we stumble over each other's feelings, drop the proverbial ball, or mishandle our responsibilities--we apologize. We explain. We excuse. But is this the same as grace?

"Giving grace" is forgiving one who has NOT apologized. (either by choice or opportunity) There is no groveling, no begging or bootlicking. No atonement...no reparation. It's the driver that cuts you off at the exit. The abhorrently rude woman at the bank who jumped line and then gave you "the look." The market cashier who dropped your carefully chosen, bruiseless golden apples into the bag like pond stones ensuring them to be a brown mottled mess tomorrow. (wretch)

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I do actually forgive easily. I'm the one who always has a "perhaps" waiting to eradicate blame. "Perhaps he's late to the hospital and his wife is having a baby." "Perhaps she has a migraine." "Perhaps they're lost..." From the irresponsible to the downright ill-mannered, I can usually come up with a possible explanation for "why" whatever thoughtless event has occurred.
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With. Others.

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And therein lies the mess. *sigh* I don't, I cannot, I am seemingly unable to give grace to myself. Floating in this vast sea of love and forgiveness--I am choking on self-recrimination, drowning in personal disparagement. The repeating reel playing over and over in my mind, what I could have said or should have done, becoming a mantra that deafens reason, mutes anything even resembling sweet intangible grace. It matters not the size of error....just that it was mine.
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I am not alone.
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Within this quagmire of culpability I have much company--mostly female, I admit. Is it in our chromosomes? Our blood? I do know men who feel intense guilt, but usually not for the aeons that my fellow women seem to suffer. The masculine ability to wrap the situation up in a neat package, tie it with string, and tuck it away in "storage" stuns me. How do I learn this? Is there a class I can take? Can we start a support group? "Love Thyself..."
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I've always known that grace was elemental--irrevocably essential--in every relationship. And yet I am surprised to discover at this point in my life....that this is also true of myself.

And so, as this holiday season is creeping up simply loaded with opportunities for faux pas, disasters & mishaps, I am determined to be gentler to myself. More understanding...

Sometimes I actually do have a smashing headache after an exhausting day and I know there's a stain on my sleeve and I burned the pastry and I've completely forgotten the directions to the party.

Soup Afterglow

2010-11-14T14:51:00.000-05:00

Within the plastic isolated globes where we have all begun to live--our wireless connections weaving tangled patterns in an invisible sky--sometimes I feel I'm holding my breath. Waiting for human contact. Warmth. Flesh. And so as the evenings begin to freeze and we dig out the sweaters and flannel, every year I rebel.

Rise up all ye dismal and grey! Denounce thy anomalous ways and come hither....to SOUP!

Yes, this year was the fourth annual Northside Soup--a party inspired by the hearty, the liquid, the creamy marrow-infused, herb sprinkled, lucious joy that is soup.

For weeks I search for new recipes, tweak old ones, simmer and bubble my afternoons away in our tiny kitchen. (not kidding there--one of this year's quotes was "This is a one butt kitchen!") I force my family to eat the rejects, harass the neighbors to taste new ones, and whittle the list down to four or five winners. This year I made a spicy Thai peanut shrimp with lime and cilantro, sausage beer & cheese with Guiness and chorizo, butternut bisque, and smokey cream of potato with all the cheese, crumbled bacon, and chives you could load on. As my co-host bailed on me THREE DAYS before the party (she usually brings several soups too--my husband asked how upset I was....I told him I erased her from my cell phone) I had loverly pals that brought a wedding soup, matzah ball, and a white chili. YUM. O.

The invites are a simple postcard I design each year that read: "Bring a bowl, a spoon and a friend. Kids, wine, bread and cheese welcome!" (it's like a contest with the bowls--one year a rather clever fellow brought a muffin tin so he could eat six soups at a time, last year the dog food bowl was a hit and this year it was a tie between the transformer cereal bowl and the finding Nemo complete with a hinged lid and flippy tail) We start at seven and end when the last guest is satiated--usually around 3:30am. It's a simple "Come when you can, leave when you must" that can be worked around other engagements and leaves everyone happy while spreading the guestload throughout the evening.

The music is smashing as my husband is a genius at mixing Santana with the muppets and Moby. From Prince to Michael Buble', Chemical Brothers to Martin Sexton & CC Adcock--it's an eclectic surge of auditory pleasure. There's a guest book to sign and a ballot to vote for your favorite delicacy. Piles of bread and baked brie and goat cheese and scrumptious vittles cover the dining room table, the buffet holds dozens of bottles of wine, and the line into the kitchen for your next dip is an excellent place to meet new friends and catch up with old ones.

We always awake the morning after to a house full of kids that are not our own. I finish off the merlot while making a mountain of pancakes and bacon and dancing to the still playing music. Last year we had over 120 soupers and I've yet to read through the guestbook, but last night was a fantastic collection of intellect, wit, and charismatic souls that laughed and danced and connected in a tradition of simplicity.

I relish the Soup. It revives me, reminds me that the world is made of flesh and breath, not manufactured compounds and synthetic fibers. Our house is not grand, the unfinished trim of a doorway incomplete, the paint chipped in the hall--but this does not hinder our festive camaraderie. For the truth of the Soup, the revelation, is that if you wait until "it" is done....whatever your "it" may be, you will miss out on the authentic happiness that is "now." We all have scuffs and brokens and imperfects...but this is exactly what ties us together. Our humanity.

I made eggs benedict this morning with leftover roasted garlic bread and fully intend to finish the herbed goat cheese on crustini for dinner.

Oh, the sweet reward that is.....the Soup.

The Asterisk of Idiocy

2010-11-01T05:34:00.000-04:00

There are moments when I am on the verge of offense....the edge of outrage...oh, the audacity of it all!

The commercial begins with a jaunty blond in a short black skirt and bad leopard print, dashing about some design-challenged suburban hut gushing, "I only paid for carpet for this ONE room and got THIS one AND THIS one for (drum roll please) for.....FREE!" Yes folks, there are enough idiots out there to actually warrant this type of brain washed jabber taking up 30 second spots during our evening entertainment. I'd like to meet one of them in person. Do they wear funny hats? Shuffle when they walk? Exactly how much can you legally overprice something so you can give something else away for "free?"
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I'm thinking about starting a taco stand. "Buy one $10 taco, get four....."
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Then there's the beauty asterisk. It's that lovely little star on the front of the bottle of shampoo under the words, "95% fewer split ends!" Once you actually dig out your microscope, turn on the florescent lighting, put on the reading glasses and squint like the local chinese opium lady (what--you don't have one of those?) you can read the words, "Compared to hair washed in gasoline." Aie Karumba! Now that's a beauty promise!
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The diet products: "Burns twice as much fat!*" (compared to those who are paralyzed in a coma)
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"Removes 85% more dirt!*" (than a wet tissue and spittle)
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"92% preferred taste!*" (over sawdust with cat urine and mold spores)
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Um.....can we draw a line? Can we just quit the bull? Shall we hog tie anyone who buys this crap? It's more than politics and mortgages--the fine print is killing our brain cells as well as our common sense!
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And by the way, this blog is preferred 98% more than the one on pustules and venereal diseases.

Companionship

2010-10-25T11:21:00.000-04:00

Autumn has arrived wrapped in her cloak of nutmeg and gold. She's brought with her more surprises than I expected....and not all of them lovely. However, I've retreated a bit from the whirlwind and sometimes taking two steps back and pausing--reveals.

This may look like an average kitchen windowsill. Usually littered with treasures from the garden, wine corks and the bits and odds that hover for a moment before finding their way back where they belong. I was washing up after lunch and saw movement. If you look closely....

Yes, there's a stinkbug there. Clinging to the blossom like a raft in the midst of an ocean of stainless steel, glass and enamel. I raised my hand......and stopped. In your own corner of the world you may be unaware (shamelessly) that we've had a storm of stink bugs here in Pennsylvania. Swarms have invaded our homes, flown through the vents in our vehicles, clung to hair and blouse to the point of swatting and swearing inside markets and shops. They're everywhere.

I've done my share of smashing and stomping, more than one stinkie has been flushed. But this particular afternoon, I was in a forgiving state of mind. Tired....and a bit lonely. I made him a deal. If he stayed on the flowers, he could live. I'd even name him.

Stanly.

I mean, really--what if today he was going to die? (how long do those suckers live anyway?) What if he had finally achieved his short life's goal of locating something lovely and natural in this concrete world?

Stanly, sit. Stay. Good boy.

He was there the next day. I watched him go from one flower to the next, his stick-like legs carefully grasping the petals. I whispered goodnight to him as I turned off the light.

It's been eight days. I've told him all about my troubles. He even watched me shed a tear or two. I think he disapproved of my late night cheese raids--woke the poor chap up. I've chopped and roasted, baked and burned....all under the watchful eye of Stanly. Surprising camaraderie. Company.

It's raining today. The windows shimmer with liquid light. Stanly and I are braising chicken, sausages and onions. Later he can supervise while I roast the butternut squash with rosemary and seasalt. (an addiction at this time of year)

I didn't know. How much I needed company.

No judgement, no comments, no platitudes or rebukes. Just company.

Persevere

2010-10-07T07:42:00.000-04:00

The human being amazes me. Not for its capacity for creativity or beauty or science....not for advancement or achievement or depravity.....but for its ability to endure.

Scar tissue.

Twisted lumps of whitened flesh that feel nothing. Severed nerve endings dangle uselessly, sending no messages....communicating nothing. I have a rather smashing scar on my right bicep. I was flying a kite as a child and while laughing and looking up to the clouds as I was running.....I crashed headlong into a barbed wire fence. The best thing about this particular macula is that as I lived on a ranch, miles from the closest doctor, after the original trip to be stitched up, a return for the "snipping" was deemed unnecessary by ye old dad. Perhaps it was a bit premature, but he thought the gash had healed well enough and sliced through the thread. It took a bit of yanking. Each and every spot that needle had pierced my skin, pulling filament behind--left a scar along side the laceration. Quite frankenstein, I assure you. Looks great with a tan. (and yes, I have told gawking strangers that I got it during a knife fight in Hong Kong...)

I've known many over the years who, thanks to sports and motorcycles and teenage antics, boast of scars much greater than mine. Did it deter them? No. The physical pain that wrecked through their bodies at the time of the injury was soon forgotten. The alabaster disfigurement becoming a badge of glory worn with pride during future episodes of genius judgement. Some might say this ability to omit physical pain is the reason we actually give birth to more than one child....

I still fly kites.

There are some scars, however, that are not so simply dismissed. They lay unseen, hidden beneath our pulsing flesh...jagged holes in our soul. These we do not boast about.

They change the color of the sky.

Yet the agony, no matter how grievous, doesn't kill us. At some point we fear it might......and then the sun rises.

.........

The human being places bare feet on the cold floor. There is dust on the nightstand. Icy water sluices over the sink, puddles about the base. The click of the medicine cabinet seems to echo. Stare at the bedroom doors across the hall...small heads and soft hearts sleeping there still. A teddy bear on the floor. Plug in the iron, drape the skirt over the pale blue stained board.....breathe.

One step, then another. And then another.

Someone once said, "When you have no idea what to do....just do what comes next."

The Heart

2010-08-27T02:08:00.000-04:00

I usually listen to NPR in the morning while I get ready for the day. Unlike the local news, I relish the global review of the latest whatnot, politics and events. There is something amazingly humbling in hearing about the devastation caused by the floods in Pakistan...I'm complaining about laundry? The trembling voice of the Chilean miner's wife who is camping in the barren desert in the smallest of tents even as you read this, until her husband can be pulled from the collapsed tunnel he is trapped in--a process that may take months--reminds me that while my husband is putting in long hours at the office--he is coming home tonight.

Sometimes, perspective is everything.

Every Friday there is a segment called StoryCorps that airs. A minute or two of dialog between usually two people--often "interviewing" although sometimes it's just one telling their story. This morning it was a married couple. He has Alzheimer's. She is his caregiver.

Honestly, I had to do my eyeliner over three times.

She asked him what he had learned from the disease. He said, "I have learned that I am not made up of memories or knowledge. I've learned that who I am....is in my heart."

This has hunted me all day. Even as I type now I'm fighting back tears.

Who am I...in my heart? Am I kind? Critical? Generous......demanding?

Who are you in your heart? If you lost all of your knowledge, your memories, your past....if you were just your heart....who would you be?

With your children....your spouse...your neighbors.

Would I be able to find joy in waking up? In toast and a poached egg and a cup of tea? Could I live inside of one single day without tomorrow, without yesterday? Can you imagine...holding on to no anger, nursing no worries, no fears... just today. To be content. In only today.

He sounded happy. Quite stunning really. I think I envied it, even while I ached inside for what he had lost. Perhaps it had been balanced by what had been gained?

What is the value of peace? How much does serenity cost?

At the end, his wife said that she had read somewhere that if you loved someone....truly loved them...you would wish to outlive them. You would voluntarily bear the burden of loss and grief and hold them to the end. She wept.

She told him she was so glad, so very glad she was there to hold him.

Who she was in her heart.....was breathtaking.

Lessons From The Forest

2010-08-15T22:24:00.000-04:00

It finally arrived! The first day of August, a.k.a.: Vacation Commencement. (delicious shudder, chills on the arms...) I know, I know--be still thy walloping heart! The whirlwind of packing; purchasing megapacks of batteries, vats of insect repellent, thousands of marshmallows. The roof rack was jammed like a big dude in a speedo, the car rivaled a tin of sardines--my husband is a packing GURU! Three little monkeys buckled in the back seat--absolutely vibrating with excitement. Anticipation, expectations, palpable thrill!

We will be one with Mother Earth....bond with the forest...meld minds with deer and fish and....well, maybe not the toads.

Things to Remember:

1. You must eat peppered bacon three meals a day. Rock. On. (What? My jeans are tight? What else makes up for the 'squitos and bugs and mud?!?) Seriously, when was the last time you ate a sandwich of grilled french bread, fresh tomato, smoked hot pepper cheese, and piles of bacon....Y.U.M. (taking bigger jeans next year so I can win the battle of the s'mores)

2. Toilet paper is optional. Shake it baby. But not too close to the tree. You might lose your balance, trip over the stick, catch your pants-about-the-ankles on a stump and wind up with bark in your bum. It's possible.....really.

3. Sex in a tent involves explanations the next day. ("honey, there was a spider....I screamed...daddy took care of it....") Thank goodness for separate tents.

4. Bug spray can be considered perfume. (look for my new line, "Chemicalicious")

5. Rum is not optional. Especially when it rains....like "dammit Lord, I don't have an ARK!" kinda rain.

6. If no one sees you pull the daddy long legs out of the omelet....it didn't happen.

7. FOURTEEN loads of laundry in three days after we got home. Is there some kind of medal my kids could compete for in multiple changes? S'more attacks, mud wrestling, full-contact badminton--they can kill four pairs of socks in less than 8 hours each!

8. And of course, the week would not be complete without a trip to the local Emergency Room with a smashing double ear infection and pink eye! (now I know where they get Springer's "studio audience")

Every year when these escapades are conceptualized we must suffer from temporary amnesia. Is it the pure oxygen from chemical-free greenery that spazes my brain? Are the deer telepathically glamoring me? What exactly is in that water? Then there was the "herb bread" we picked up at the roadside farm stand.....

I'm plotting out next summer already. Crazy.....utterly crazy.

Flirtation Nation

2010-07-22T19:58:00.000-04:00

I've recently been accused of being a flirt....a rather large one at that. Moi?? Yet unintentionally I've acquired a stalker most persistent and thus, tragically, I've lost my grocery store. Do you know how traumatic that is?? Dammit, I KNEW where the turnips were! The coffee was in isle three and they had a particular kind of herbilicious brie I'd consider playing truth-or-dare for...

Then I ruined it. *sigh*

"How could this happen?" you ask. With a COMPLIMENT. A measly, weasly completely normal compliment! Except apparently someone has changed "the rules"and I missed the twitter or download or version III or whatever. Harumph.

This supposed "marriage proposal" of a compliment occurred in the check out line. 20 minutes of perusing the smashing array of vapid magazine covers and catching up on the latest of who's sleeping with who while adopting children after plastic surgery gone awry in Uruguay had left me at a loss and the sweet cooing of this darling baby in the buggy next to me was a welcome distraction.

There was a smile and a bit of drool combined with the foot kick and a squeal--a dead ringer move for stealing any heart--and I giggled right back! She laughed and I laughed and then glancing up at dad-e-o I commented, "She's really quite charming!"

Wouldn't you know it, unbeknownst to me, this particular phrase has been upgraded from "casual conversation" to "hussy pick-up." Dear Saint Jehosophat and his pet clown.

He followed me to my car.

Two days later he chased me down the dairy isle inquiring how to pick yogurt.

He even came into "Tampon Alley" with a toothy grin causing utter panic and I fled, leaving my buns behind.

However, when regaling pals with this tale of woe, I was informed most readily by said pals that it is now actually written in "How to get a date" books: Phase 1. Grocery store compliments.

AHHHHH!

Do you mean to tell me that the "was it still raining when you came in?" is now a request to crash happy hour? "That looks like a fabulous melon" might get you slapped, and "oops, you dropped your crackers" is storefront foreplay??

Dagnabbit.

Can someone please send me a new copy of these rules?? Does this apply to...say....the Verizon store? (I am SO re-thinking voicing my desire for "upgraded attachments") What about the mall? Can I still ask for double cream in my coffee or will I be labeled as a sex addict for life?

I've put off getting the oil changed in the car indefinitely. Somehow I'm certain "Please sir, will you check my fluids and lube the chassy" is not going to end well....

The Scent of Life

2010-07-16T04:28:00.000-04:00

It's late now. The summer night has bled the heat of the day with a vampires patient thirst. Sucking it slowly, draining the heavy thick air. The curtains beside me billow; sheer fabric whispering a lover's endearments. I sigh. Like wayward Christmas lights escaped from their string, the fireflies dance below in an endless game of tag.

Yet as I sit here, it is not the sound of the night that occupies me. Crickets chirp, leaves rustle, the chatter of neighbors dim and distant. It is not the slick feel of my shower-damp skin, random drops of water sliding down my neck from the hair coiled above.

For woven, entwined and infusing it all is the scent, the aroma....the fragrance of life.

I close my eyes. It permeates the air. Saturates my pores. The smell of grass and smothered bonfires and summer baked pavement. Grilled salmon with dill, incense.....paint. The coffee pot is filled with fresh ground, set for early morning. "April freshness" is spilling from the sheets in the the dryer into the warm night. The drift of smokey sweetness from the swirling whiskey on the desk tempts me...

Scent is so powerful. Its cognitive stimulation and connection to memory is utterly astounding. Recently I was driving with the windows down and while I am unsure of the elements that were involved, without warning I was inundated by the smell of my childhood babysitter's home. It's half a dozen states away in the mountains of Colorado and though I was only there a handful of times--the absolute vividness of that brown shag carpet and towering A-frame house was nearly overwhelming. I haven't had reason to even think about that place or my four year-old world in decades....but there I was.

She was putting marigolds in a glass on on the table.

Have you ever been swept away to your grandmother's kitchen via a simple apple pie? Drug back into a nightmare by the scent of your ex's cologne? Every time I smell fresh ground nutmeg I land in a bowl of warm rice pudding wrapped in a shawl on a crisp autumn day.

Ironing shirts leaves me standing next to my father before he left for work....

I am addicted to scent. Perfumes and lotions and incense and food. I love when someone walks into my home and says, "wow it smells so good..." Utter joy when I see the boys pause in the doorway after school and just inhale.

Home.

You can use scent to lose weight, improve your mood, even increase your passion and desire. Fragrance lures us, inspires us, transports us.

Tonight, it has me wrapped in Summer, enfolded in her delicious warm arms, and reveling in the night.

Whoops.

2010-07-06T04:26:00.000-04:00

Recently I was told I've been a tad absent. Sincere apologies here--there have actually been several consecutive days when I've been unable to find the time to check mail, much less collect my scatterbrained thoughts into a comprehensible sentence! With a ninety-three year old living in my first floor guest room and three boys under 12 home for the summer--my life is now consumed by scraped knees, fruit loop wars, skate board ramps, "eggs & bacon" at the pool (have you heard of this??), and lost false teeth.

In the midst of the mayhem, lessons have been learned this steamy summer....oh please do sit back and listen, wisdom of the ages here.....

Episode one: Decorating Sense.

When mixing ALL of your friends from many different walks of life, backgrounds, and places together for your Party-Lite bash; it may not be a good idea to get creative with your centerpiece. For while you may indeed think that the little green bottles, lined up on the silver tray, with a single daisy in each, surrounded by a handful of glittering seaglass and shells looks just divine on the dining room table.....it only takes one pal from your college days to comment, "Say, aren't those Jagermeister minis?!" to swing your soiree from "elegant afternoon tea" to Friday night bar hop. Tequila anyone?

Episode two: Use a Hammer, dammit.

It was a scorching hot day last June. We were moving and my darling parents had come to help us. Now, while I'm simply amazed by this generosity--this amazement faded a bit as we dismantled our king size bed. Nearly done, I left to root out a hammer to separate the frame. From the kitchen I hear crazy crashing noises--what in the name of Hosophat's hangers?? Returning to the bedroom, I discover my father--my 10 lb solid chunk-o-steel weight in hand--beating the crap out of my bedframe. "Heh, heh--didn't need that hammer after all!" he proudly says as the now slightly twisted and mangled bits of metal fall apart. "Ummm....thanks pop."

Fast forward. This weekend.....3 lovely long days with the kids gone to my ex's for the holiday and some privacy! Hubba hubba darlings. We made one run to the grocery for ice-cream, to the butcher for steaks to grill, and to the beverage store for the makings of a killer pitcher of long islands! A delicious delving into the sensual and forbidden fruits....

It's 3:30 in the afternoon and after a smashing lunch and leisurely shower...we retire for a little afternoon delight. (wink, wink) A half hour later, our fabulously crooked bedframe is being put to the test....ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-THUNK.....and drifting up from downstairs is the voice of my grandmother, "WHO IS IT?!?!"

Thanks dad.

Episode three--Storage.

First mistake: We were throwing a party with about a 75-80 person guest list--kids included. (no, I don't smoke crack-why do you ask?) and I was racing about stashing stuff. (this is my idea of cleaning when pressed for time) And there is that....well, tub-o-adult-fun that needs to be...changed. It's a clear tub....and...well, you know. So I'm searching for something you can't see through and come across an extra lego tub--you know, the one that looks like a giant blue lego? PERFECT! (I know, I know....) And yes--several hours later I discovered my youngest son--thoroughly confused because, "these aren't legos mom..."

Second mistake: Do I go out and shop to buy a discreet container to....NO! What, you think I'm made of money?? Of COURSE I just grab an extra holiday tub from the seasonal decorations.

It was marked "Summer."

Episode four: Parrot Head.

I'd had enough squabbling over the party parrot for the day so I stuck him on top of the toaster oven in the kitchen. Unbeknownst to me, the little switch was still on. (you say something and in his endearing shriekish parrot voice, he screams it back to you twice) So the phone rings, I'm up to my elbows in roasted chicken and garlic with "mo-ooom, I'm hungry!" whining from the living room and the last thing I need is the fleebity bleep phone. "Mommy needs a drink!" I hiss in exasperation as I pick up the cordless....."Hello?"

And as the pastor's wife sweetly asks how I am, Party Pete squawks across the kitchen, "Mommy needs a drink! Mommy needs a drink!"

Oh my....summer has just begun. Did I mention we're going camping for a week??

Bread......and friendship.

2010-06-07T05:13:00.000-04:00

I nearly had a heart attack reading an ice-cream label today...it had 27 ingredients. Twenty-seven.

I have few addictions. Good martinis, butter...lobster. (hmmm...some of those certainly go together) The smell of paint and sunshine...herbs. I subscribe to a single magazine--Saveur. Honestly, I can immerse myself for hours in pages of wild chanterelles, lemongrass, and olives; luscious ideas of tantalizing taste and scrumptious possibility. Last month they had 14 recipes for bloody marys...and chocolate gravy. Yet there seems to be a single remarkable theme...real food. Untainted.

We pay a dollar more for the mac and cheese that doesn't have "yellow #12" in it; even more for free range chickens fed on grains and worms and grass. We buy jars of peanut butter that only last a month and I am obsessed with my butcher who actually cuts my steaks in front of me--two inches thick and marbled enough to make me bite my lower lip and inhale softly in anticipation of the tender feast that awaits.

The age of MSG. It put american-chinese food on the map....and is now the number one anti-advertisement: "delicious with no msg!" Tv dinners, microwave magic, cereal that "has a full day's vitamins in one bowl." (shudder) As our technology surged, we reveled in our modern intelligence, our clever short-cuts to facilitate a new world with a new definition of family. No longer was it even feasible to awake with the dawn and mix and knead the yeast into loaves that needed 6 hours on the back of a warm oven to rise and then bake. Instant was good...filling was better. We applauded, we rationalized. And then....

There was this slow....missing.

Like a summer's night without fire flies. Autumn without leaves...Christmas without stockings. Blame it on doubts...on science, disease scares...on texture. We found ourselves with plastic trays and mushy pasta, mediocrity leaving us hungry ten minutes after the meal for lack of sustenance. The epic death of taste buds.

Revolution.

Why does it seem...as we now submerge ourselves in a sea of organic and natural and pure...that we have somehow escalated the fraudulent lives we lead? We rave over unpasteurized goat cheese and fire roasted lamb with figs while we permeate our relationships with additives, enhancements...garnishes. Our media, our politicians...our families. I have found myself smiling at a party even as I swallowed garish sallow compliments. I've entertained complete frauds. I've been guilty of accepting the synthetic. I've even dished it out...with cilantro.

It seems that the real...the pure relationships are...sparse. Is it just that I'm older? More discriminating? Less patient?

As I muddled garam masala and fresh garlic in a mortar and pestle this afternoon, preparing to sear and roast--I found myself contemplating my recent dissatisfaction in my personal relationships. I have rushed. I have microwaved entirely too often. I have settled for instant.

Friendship....real and true and honest friendship...needs yeast, not baking soda.

Authenticity in a Vaporous World

2010-05-21T04:10:00.000-04:00

Recently I've read several blogs--mmmmm....perhaps I should qualify that as "blog-operas" that have left some interesting questions floating about. The topic at hand? Reality.

Tangible, tasteable, pungent reality.

Scene One: The Offense. Random musings, memories or opinions that apparently clash with another's such stuff.

Scene Two: The Comment. Sarcasm and contempt; snarkiness penned and then keyed and sent through the virtual mist.

Scene Three: DRAMA. So the comment is commented upon and then the favor is returned and there is deletion and right on cue, enter another post guised as a ravishing rant spouting fountains about truth and reality...

Truth? Reality? Exactly how do we define such concepts in this vague and anonymous dimension? Glowing text on a blackened screen stares blankly at me. No face, no warmth, no pulse. Who's there....on the other side of this electric box that keeps me company in the night?

How do I know you're real? That your children are more than figments of a detailed imagination? That the attractive face on your profile isn't a download from freepix.com? And the poetry you post really isn't stolen from the journal of an ancient Aunt, long passed from this life? How do I know?

I don't.

It's strange...this intangible world of words. One might assume it to be harmless yet it evidences not. You need only to read the pained and angry sentiments glaring on the screen to catch the fragrance of raw human emotion. How does a total stranger hurt us with their unattached perspective on our lives? How do we open ourselves...at times intimacy so deep and bloody, the gelatinous marrow of our souls....pasted up for complete strangers to stumble upon and dissect.

What drives the dissected....what drives the dissector? Loneliness? Power? The need to be heard? Do we seek virtual relationships that are decidedly two dimensional, to escape the messy 3-D ones that leave endless cracker crumbs in our beds? Our lives....our minds?

This is so clean.

Or is it?

The iron tang of betrayal is found on some screens, generous support and warmth on others. Anger and justification, hope and hilarity. Loquacious dialog, patronizing prose...romance and treachery, beauty and lust. If you could distill a human soul, remove it from the body with no physical manifestation at all....perhaps we'd find ourselves here, with a blinking cursor and a blank screen.

If our lives were nothing more than a compilation of our writing--comments and questions and stories; memories, dreams....fears. What would your novel be titled? Would your neighbors reccognize it? Your spouse.....your children?

Blogland is amazing. It's taught me much about myself. Honesty about why I write....what I discover in these connections, how I've come to quite literally care about people that I'm not certain even exist. I think I've found it has more to do with me....than you.

Gorilla Girl

2010-05-18T18:35:00.000-04:00

You know, today was lovely. Awesomely lovely. Normal in every way as I headed toward Target for miscellaneous crap and cat food. And then....

Two hours later I had retrieved not one, but THREE bottles of freakin' Pantene from ten feet in the air. I nearly dropped some patio planter on my head to the utter joy of the slew of toddlers watching, and I put my lower back out shoving Begging Berta's box-o-dishes into her cart.

Do I WORK at Target? NO. Am I a nun out to earn my place in the heavens with good deeds and charity? NO. (did I forget to mention the fifteen minutes I stood with my arms over my head, holding up CURTAINS for this yoda-esque old lady who just "didn't know if they were long enough for my windows deary..." )

My day in Target was brought to you due to my jeans. No, not "genes." The ones on my derriere with the 36 inch inseam.

The saga begins....

My first memory of how absurd the world was going to be was walking into a new class in 4th grade and having a complete stranger--an adult--shake my hand. She thought I was the substitute. Smack you not. Now remember, this is nearly 30 years ago when they did NOT have "cool kid clothes" in larger styles. (cringe) Ooooh, the pictures in my mind....it was frightening. There was lots of polyester. And elastic. (shudder)

I grew so fast I out-paced every ounce of coordination the good Lord gave me. There wasn't a stairwell I couldn't fall up. Cracks in the sidewalk were like engraved invitations for me to faceplant. I misjudged doorways, ate soccor ball nets, and on one brilliant occasion--nearly decapitated myself in my own locker.

And then there was my name. Now seriously, I took french--and I know that it's a french name and that it means "to sing" and all the lovely stuff.....but I swear, it's ChanTEL. Not ChanTALL. *sigh* "Hightower" was bad enough--we won't even GO into "Show-n-tell." Like dude, you get asked out by ALL the wrong guys...

I'd like a dime for every time someone has said to me, "Oh--I'd LOVE to be tall..." Really? You haven't lived until you have wet down a pair of jeans, closed the ankles in the dorm door, and leaned your entire being into stretching them....just....thiiiiiiis....much. Of course, when the roommate opens the doors causing the jeans to whip at lightspeed through the air leaving rivet marks on your face....the night has just begun.

My chest is eye-level for half of America. My cheeks seem to be magnets--attracting the knife-like little pointy ends of umbrellas city wide. Rainy days are LETHAL to me if I have to go downtown....I look like I'm dodging a hive of wild bees or trying out for some kind of circus limbo act.

One of my arms is longer than the other....not that this actually matters since there isn't a single "off the rack" kinda place I can shop for something long-sleeved. I order everything from a catalog called "Long Elegant Legs."

The mail man thinks I'm buying sleezy lingerie....or porn.

I understand that the world isn't fair. We each have our own list of things we'd like to change about ourselves.

However. I wear a size 12 shoe. Swear.

I think I missed my calling. I should have been a bouncer...

Or worked for Target.

Withered

2010-05-14T02:31:00.000-04:00

I recently saw one of those bumper stickers that says, "My kid beat up your honor student at such and such a high school" which, after a chuckle, gave me pause. While I appreciate the sarcasm, the sentiment behind the words--and the approval given therein, is a bit disturbing. I've been shocked lately by how many things are overlooked or accepted for the mere reason that there is a relationship with the people involved.

I admit it--I'm a painter that uses pigments of such variety and intensity, radiance, hue, luscious color--and yet I am absolutely guilty of black and white vision.

In a world where tolerance and acceptance reign supreme, I find myself the weary champion of common sense and distance. I am on the horse, sword in hand, charging the hoard of justification and explanations, the masses of excuse.

Why does it seem that when a person has a relationship with another--be it friendship, romance, or family--that judgement and perception become skewed as if reflected in a funhouse mirror? Stretched and smashed into a ludicrous replica of reality?

Everyone is quite horrified at the young mother who leaves her children in a state-funded daycare as she ditches work to indulge in "carnal frivolity" for the afternoon--yet the horror evaporates when it's whats-her-head's sister who is "going through a rough patch" with her boyfriend.

We're incensed at "Joe" who quits looking for a job and rides out the unemployment train for 6 months while playing guitar hero and eating nachos--until it's somebody's son who "just really needs a break right now."

"You can't blame poor Jane next door for having an affair--she's so lonely when her husband travels..."

We dismiss selfishness, explain affairs, justify cheating, even excuse stealing--all due simply to our proximity to the situation. What ever happened to distance? If you watched that particular movie on television, with total strangers making those choices, would you feel the same? Are we compromising our morality or are we merely a victim of familiar manipulation?

There is a right and a wrong.

I've lost friends over this, offended family, and irritated total strangers.

I am exhausted from listening to 40 minute defenses of the most irrational and destructive behavior. Since when do I need to agree with something simply because I know someone?? Where has our independent judgement gone?

Perhaps we allow or approve so as to leave room for our own possible indiscretions?

Are we splintering our evaluations? Fragmenting our ethics?

Please don't misunderstand--I am guilty beyond measure of several of the issues I raise....and I know it. Today I listened as a teacher at a local college told me how dumbfounded she was as she had caught two students cheating. And at the end of class, another--previously completely unknown--came to her and said, "I too, cheated." She almost hugged her.

Screwing up is human. Mistakes are not optional--they're part of our genetic make-up. It's how we learn, how we grow.....every chef has burned hundreds of meals. Every dancer falls, every painter paints one...make that dozens, that she covers in white gesso....and begins again.

However--it is in the knowing it is a mistake, in the admission....that is where we grow. To excuse is to stunt.

I am heartsick at some of the twisted shriveled vines that might have been magnificent trees....simply because they excuse, rather than admit.

Two of my favorite quotes:

"Don't compromise yourself; you are all you got." Janis Joplin

"You don't get to choose how you are going to die. Or when. You can only decide how you're going to live. Now." Joan Baez

Choose well.

Sexy

2010-05-07T18:17:00.000-04:00

Yesterday afternoon my nine year-old came running into the house to tell me there was some wild bug in the back yard I just had to see. He grabbed my hand, pulling me toward the door while I was laughing and trying to dry off with a kitchen dishtowel; leaving a half carved roast on the counter. We were almost to the door when he stopped and turned my hand over to look at the palm. His fingers were gentle as he touched the rougher thickened spots. "Mom, what are these?" "Callouses honey, you get them from working hard." "Why do you work so hard Mom?"

"Cause your daddy thinks it's sexy."

Sexy. What a universe is contained within such a small word. It encompasses ideas so varied, so open to interpretation....googling it may be more frightening than educational. In this crazy maze of variety and taste, (yes, I did once find a calendar in my college roomie's closet--smack me now--it had overweight men in lingerie. I considered lysoling my eyes.) the ideas of what is "sexy" are as varied as the proverbial fish in the sea.

There is a woman I pass frequently in the grocery isles. I probably pass the same 58 people on a regular basis and never realize it--however she is a tad memorable. Possibly a distant relative of Mimi on the Drew Carey Show, she has a passion for ice-blue eye shadow, meticulously applied orange lipstick, and garish Hawaiian print dresses. She resembles Mimi in more than just appearance, I might add. I nearly swallowed my gum when rounding a corner to hear her say to a small boy, "Ya little cracker, takin' up space with yer stupid boots, move it!" While I'm sure she has an endearing sweet side, the ensuing verbal battle between Mimi-twin and Cracker-mom was enough that I skipped the baking isle that day. Cake is simply not worth that particular mess.

But what occurred to me, was that sometime that very morning, she stood in front of a mirror before she left the house and thought, "Damn, I look good!" Most likely she has a husband who thinks she is the cat's meow...and I am truthfully rather grateful for this. The older I get the more I realize that if everyone liked the same thing, half the planet would be screwed! (not literally, mind you)

Which brings me back to sexy. I really wasn't kidding when I told my son that yesterday.

It was August. You could taste the heat....like salt and yellowed grass and pavement. I had been in my studio painting. My hair pulled up, I had paint--as usual--everywhere. My hands, my neck, my tank top was smeared with the colors of sky and sand....I smelled like acrylics and sweat. When I answered the door he said, "God, you're sexy." I laughed....and then we forgot about going out to dinner.

I was raised on a ranch which resulted with a hard ass case of physical labor addiction. Two days ago I spent nearly nine hours sanding and painting the entire front porch (which looks smashing, I must say) and am still sitting here with bruised knees and slivers in my fingers. But I love it. I adore the ache in my legs and the stiff muscles of my back after a hard day of work. And when nine times out of ten, he comes home to this....

Ummm.....yeah. That's me, week one, just after we bought the house last summer. Drywalling.

Rock. On.

I know, I know--how can anyone find that sexy?? He does. And this sweat inspired arousal is certainly not one directional! I'll never forget the day--we had been dating only a few months--and he had to change the fuel pump in his jimmy. One of those things that you think will take 2 hours and it takes 6. He came in covered with grease and oil and gasoline...I handed him a beer. And then knocked it to the floor as I nearly tackled him. He now jokes about making a Cologne, "Hard Labor," that smells of a garage.....I get breathless just thinking about it.

However, it raises the question: do we find only the aroma of hard work attractive.....or is it more than that? Could it be possible that the very IDEA of a man working hard, who accomplishes things, makes/builds/fixes things....productivity and creativity and sacrifice--that this is what flips my switch? In a world of couch potatoes and complainers, this dude throws down some scraped knuckles and damn, I melt. Perhaps my pheromones have met my perspicacity? Intelligence encounters lasciviousness.

Hang on....he's just turned off the lawnmower. Catch ya later.....

May Second

2010-05-02T22:18:00.000-04:00

Evening draws near. The day almost done...rain has filled the air with the smell of grass and wood and the last of the lilacs. Air so heavy; condensation ripples down my wineglass...pools on the desk. Dark liquid reflecting the glimmer of merlot. Quiet. My skin damp, kissed by the mist from the window. I can taste him.

May Second. The day everything changed.

First, rewinding....

A summer's night, warm and lovely. A sundress of lace and colors lush...draped over garden tanned shoulders...hours spent thinking, wondering. I had softened my hands with jasmine oil, my pulse fast and slick with anticipation. I glanced up through the restaurant window....my heart paused.

Him.

He "never shared his food"... (soft smile) but I switched our plates of crab-stuffed lobster and succulent blackened salmon when he was picking out the second bottle of wine....and he smiled. We ate. I licked the butter from my fingers as his eyes burned into mine.

A month later.

Why does this feel like recognition..........not discovery?

Souls entwined like morning dreams

Translucent

Sheer threads in a tapestry of color

Is it possible?

This wave of emotion

Threatening to sweep me out to sea

How amazing

To drown and soar in the same moment.

How many of us have hesitated...frightened to take the leap that crippled us the first time. Years pass....and trust grew. The slowest of seedlings. Gentle hands, whispered promises. Dawn, wrapped in one blanket, my head on his chest. New beginnings. Honor. Commitment.

May second.

Dusk. Ivy twined with crystal lights....draped across the mantle, the windows. An ocean of candlelight. Warm breezes caressed my back. White sundress, bare feet.

"I do."

He calls me Butterfly.

The Murder of Quiet

2010-04-26T04:56:00.000-04:00

Driving home from the market today, I sat at an intersection next to a mini-van with children in it. Certainly not that remarkable, I assure you...however, there were also tv screens. Three of them. Attached to the back of the seats in front, all three had a different program on....and three little heads had three sets of earbuds and while mom was chatting to whomever on her blue tooth, there was an air of....what? Peace? Not exactly. Isolation? Detachment?

Flashbacks of my childhood grocery days...my sisters and I rattling on, joking...laughing. (to the point that my mother actually used to PAY us a quarter if we could be quiet the whole way home--cheeky thing) But none the less, there was a curious satisfying mingling....ideas and thoughts and...life. Family.

I turned the corner and headed home. Parking I noticed the neighbor cutting his lawn...i-pod attached. A couple walked by, pushing a stroller with a toddler...she was on her cell phone, he was messing with a black berry and the toddler? Had some kind of hand-held game that was maniacally beeping and buzzing to his obvious delight. I walked inside the house, dropping keys on the entry table. Kicking my shoes under the bench I made my way to the kitchen with my culinary loot. The window was open...a breeze tickled the back of my neck as I slid the onions into their basket, nestled peaches and plums together in the bowl....packed away the eggs and cheese and milk. I could hear the birds in the backyard...a distant dog barking...and leaning against the counter, I just closed my eyes and smiled. You know that feeling? So good to be home.

Dinner begun, slicing bacon and onions, the sizzle in the pan...delicious aromas filled the room and I thought about my day. What I'd said, whom I met....and it suddenly occurred to me, "I wonder if that couple thinks....through the noise."

The incessant blur that is our technological revolution. It's a barrage...an attack on the senses and the mind as we rise each day. The "convenience" we demand: portable everything. Music everywhere we go--cellphones and crackberries and games--oh, the holiest of grails: entertainment. Heaven forbid you actually might have to wait in line at the post office without having a game to play.

And I wonder....

Could we design a study....concoct a thesis....could there really be a correlation between the moral disintegration of our society, the eroding of our families.....and the simple lack of quiet.

In the quiet, there is only you. In the quiet.....there your actions are to be faced. Decisions made in haste are rethought...apologies composed as you hear your own angry words reverberating in your mind. In the quiet, goals are set. Dreams are discovered, plans made...ideas go from mere wisps to full-fledged intentions.

The quiet is not always comfortable. It holds ghosts...mistakes. But it is within this very discomfort that we surpass the animal world--where our humanness thrives--where we become....more.

There was a time, when going for a walk meant thinking about your day, not sifting through the latest playlist. When we mowed our lawns or planted our gardens...we examined our lives. Have we lost this in the endless quest for entertainment and distraction? Can we not ride the bus and actually have a pleasant conversation with a stranger? Must we all be surrounded by a wall...a distance created by cords and headphones.

Are we "entertaining" ourselves into isolation? And in this individual plastic creation--are we becoming so self-centered, so absolutely used to having it "our way"--that the slightest detour from this--the inconvenience of another's schedule, wishes, taste in music for goodness sakes! becomes an intrusion?

Some of the greatest moments of my life, the beginnings of glorious love and friendships and joy...were inconveniences and interruptions.

The greatest epiphanies in my heart--both blissful and agonizing--occurred in the quiet.

Today....tonight, on your commute, on your walk...turn off the noise. Unplug. Just listen. Listen to your heart, the voice of your soul....you may be wonderfully surprised by what it has to say.

The Deliciousness of Dirt

2010-04-13T05:30:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I can almost feel the calcification of my bones in the cold. It seeps into my tendons and muscles, permeating tissues...they petrify.

And then one morning, shuffling to the car...a pause. What--a breeze? Not the acrid scrape of winter's breath, but something warm, soft...sweet. Time lapse photography would document the melting of snow, the green mist that crept across the yard...and perhaps the daily lightening of my steps. Secret smiles beneath the curtain of my hair as careful fingers plucked blackened leaves from tiny nubs, tulips and daffodils gasping for air. The brittle smack of tape and plastic peeled from the ancient 15 paned window in the dining room; the hand crank turns and glass glides and creamy sheer curtains billow into the room....sweet spring.

My knees are sore...the left one stained from the tear in my jeans. The sun was irresistible--and the light glow on my shoulder blades testifies to my careless abandonment of the sweater I ventured out in. Spaghetti tank straps have left ivory shadows behind. Ahhhh...the seduction. Dark and loamy, vital...the smell of soil. Alive. Plunging my hands deep into the bed, breaking clumps, churning the earth, burgeoning with the promise of basil and rosemary....fresh tomatoes, cucumber salad with prawns and dill.

Kneading the dirt, I wonder at the miracle that takes the dead, the digested...the waste of our lives and with heat and light and time...creates the perfect medium for new growth. Last year's mistakes, miscalculations....become life.

How often we miss this. Frantically I have tried to rearrange, reorder...rethink. Perhaps I have lost the marvel that is the garden. Renewal. Rebirth.

My fingers seek out bits of tangled roots, the weeds of last season desperately clinging to the hope of invisibility. Have I let the weeds in my mind take root? The smallest of seeds can grab hold...invade. Do we evaluate our lives with the care that Home Depot assumes we take with our lawns? What do we cultivate...what do we thin. Our work, our homes....schedules, family, commitments. Do we plant the extravagant as well as the healthy? Mint and lavender and plums...

Every garden is temporary. Each has a season. Casual hands bear spindly fruits. It's the careful heart, the attentive soul, the calloused palm...that reaps succulent bounty.

Treading Water

2010-03-31T04:18:00.000-04:00

The ocean...I crave it. The delicious tang in the air that teases my tongue with memories of salty sweet taffy, the resounding crash of the surf against rock and golden sand, the endless cerulean blue horizon...it soothes me. Perhaps this urge to loose myself in the rhythms of the waves is merely part of my soul, an amniotic reflex... Perhaps it's deeper than that.

Water itself is the absolute--life cannot exist desiccant. It's our chemical make-up, the strength of our bones, the scent of our hair, the texture of our skin. Who can deny the healing powers of a steamy bath at the end of a taxing day? The invigorating rush of a shower to rinse away the night...the sensuality that awakens as the heated caress of a hot tub surrounds our thighs...

And so it comes as no surprise that my favorite view of life, my inspiration, is the sea. A vast aquatic pulsing ocean that we live within. Sometimes we swim desperately for our lives, thrashing against reason and tide. Sometimes we float on tropical rafts with frothy cocktails sporting jaunty umbrellas.

Some have a definite destination; long smooth strokes propel them purposefully toward their goal. Others flounder about, knocking over rafts and banging into fellow swimmers causing conflict, confusion. A few struggle, doggy paddling...barely keeping their heads above water.

Some drown.

Me? I'm treading water.

My muscles are on fire, aching. I've had several months at a frenetic pace--pushing myself beyond comfort zones, tearing tendons, stretching muscles as well as preconceived notions. I'm weary...
A pause. A rest.

Lift my head, still my limbs. I tried floating but the sky was so brilliant, the lull of the waves so tender, my eyes fluttered...sleep so seductive.

The sea is not a place for naps.

So I tread. Considering....taking stock of distant land masses. Watching the clouds for signs of of a storm. The black underbelly of cumulus entities that herald perilous winds and treacherous waters. I can see others all about me, their own struggles...triumphs and joys...doubts. I wonder if they know how fatigued I am. Can they see the muscle spasms beneath the glittery blue surface? Perhaps I need to head for shore...stretch out and work the knots from my back, the kinks in my sinews. Life is more than the expenditure of force.

For now....considering options....treading water.

I've Lost My Today, Have You Seen It?

2010-03-17T04:30:00.000-04:00

Lately, I've found myself evaluating. It's a bit of a process, must say. To assess, to survey. You see, I think there is an epidemic going round. It may sound strange...but an epidemic of tomorrow.

The funny thing, is that I feel that it began with an epidemic of yesterday.

I have a pet peeve that at times erupts in the most awkward of circumstances. It's those people that continually harangue about what should have been. What might have....what could have or would have, in my humble opinion, has absolutely no value. Ziltch. Repetitive clamoring over the job she almost got, the date he should have had, or what happened at last year's holiday bash that wrecked my neighbor's shot at a raise.....well, it's over. The only thing that truly matters, is what IS. I do NOT want to hear what a great doctor you would have made...but now you're a stripper. Seriously.

I suppose it makes my heart ache a bit, for those souls that live by re-living. They miss out on so much and seem perpetually starved. As if they've never tasted the delicious thrill of what IS. Is life so disappointing? Can it hinge so imperatively on past choices or events that recovery is impossible? Did you know...there are entire cook books on what to do with lemons.

But then, we rebounded. The oceanic surge of Oprahesque promise and Philenthropic (ha, I slay me!) hope has nearly asphyxiated us with tomorrow. Bulging eyes and blue veins throbbing, we are clutching the future with desperate claws, a death grip on aspiration. For we have believed a lie...

That we can have it all.

It's a lovely lie. A cozy, soft warm lie. It's wrapped in tasty layers of potential and possibility. Anything could happen, right? Pretty Woman taught me that. But this lie is a devastating thief. Such a nimble one, nearly invisible we don't even suspect that he's there, in the room with us....stealing the jewel. Our today.

I'm truly not insane and I don't mean to imply that we should never plan or prepare for tomorrow--grocery shopping every day would drain me before I even began the feast. However, I've known so many people, who are living for tomorrow. "When I get a raise...when we buy a house...when I graduate, when I'm skinny, when I'm married...." These things are indeed there, just up ahead....but not today.

Today is splendid. Today is real. Wrap your arms around it and embrace the astonishing miracle that is...now.

Hell Has Another Name.

2010-03-10T11:46:00.000-05:00

Tuesday, March 9, 2010.

Official Record.

Previously: Best Friend calls to initiate contact. Frivolous discussion about said friend's upcoming trip to Florida; beaches, swimsuits.... lovehandles. "Um.....shall we go for a walk this week, to exercise a bit?" she says. " There's a park near my house with a lake."

"Sounds lovely! Tuesday perhaps?"

Now to be absolutely fair, BF did indeed casually mention that it was five miles. As I tear up about eight in twenty minutes on my stationary bike every other day or so, I thought very little of this.

I pick her up in my blazer, we are dynamically jolly on our way to the lake.

My, that is quite a lake, eh?

We arrive and park, stashing coats in the back seat as the sun is gloriously shining, warming the 43* air to a delusional "warm spring day." I glance about....the women in the parking lot are...a bit intimidating. Folks, I'm wearing jeans. And old tennies. A t-shirt with some bar logo on it and a sweater I often paint in--leaving it dabbed here and there with various pigment additions. These other women have apparently stepped out straight from Shape magazine. Glamorous athletic outfits with glowing piping and detail. Hell, they have matching shoes and headbands! (when did flashdance come back in? Oh wait--those are ear warmers...) They're flipping bouncy pony tails as they tuck designer ipods into tiny waistbands...I hate them.

Mile 1

Picturesque. Blazing sunshine glints off the ice, regal geese meandering through the grass, we stride; long steps and deep breaths. We throw back our heads and laugh, jaunting along, giggling at the construction guys that are actually getting into wet suits. (for some reason they were into the lake under the ice...um, insanity?) Nonplussed, we parade on. The clouds are so fluffy...

Mile 2

Slight wheezing. BF requests that I slow down. So thoughtless of me! Of course, my dear...I'm six feet tall and darling Ag is five foot foot three, completely unfair there. We notice the geese rather stink. We chuckle as we comment that every runner passing us looks to be in pain. Ha, ha, what IS their problem? Is that a hill? My goodness.

Mile 3

The chafing begins. Perhaps they could post a warning, "G-strings are highly unrecommended for long ventures." There was that awkward sideways step with a hop as I try to inconspicuously grab the string through my jean pocket. Ag: "Thats why they make active wear." Wench. "Who's idea was this?" "I don't know, but she's dead meat."

Mile 4

Oh. My. God. *gasp* "Is that the end of the lake?" Ummm....no. That's just where the trail takes off up the MOUNTAIN there and then bends to the right, circles around and then we have to go all the way back down the other side. Damn geese shit is everywhere! There is now a distinct burning sensation in my hip joints. I'm seriously considering hitching. There is a nice mother and children walking a sweet dog coming our way. We're passing. I smile....perhaps it was more of a grimace as she immediately put one child behind her protectively. Ag: "She's got car keys around her neck. You grab the keys, I'll take out the kids and we'll drive back to our car!" Sheer panic on the woman's face. I smack Ag, "Quit scaring the pedestrians!" In the distance I hear the woman say, "Now THAT is why you should never talk to strangers!" Dear Lord, we've become today's lesson in stranger danger.

Mile 5

I'm now serious about hitching. My right calf has seized. I joke about a ride and some pervy 55 year old man on a bench gets up, "Hey baby, I'll give you a ride." Ag: "Walk FASTER DAMMIT!" I consider replying. But I cannot breathe.

The parking lot.

I'm dragging a leg. Ag sounds like a thrashing grouper. We're nearly crawling and she says, "I know this hairbrained idea was mine, but I'm the crazy one in this relationship here--you approved it! You're like MANAGEMENT!"

This morning I can hardly move. I made it down for coffee...and nearly had a seizure trying to put my socks on.

I'm firing management.

The Evolution of Love

2010-03-01T05:03:00.000-05:00

Now that the dreaded month of February is fading in all of its loathsome pastel fluffery, (shudder) I can finally of speak of love. Not the Hallmark misty commercial type, not the the damsel-in-distress with torn clothing and breasts bursting the seams. Not even the gasping shadows that wear diamond baubles and kiss....but real love. The love that buys cheese.

"For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks; the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation." Rainer Maria Rilke

I've known love. From infancy my mother loved me; gentle, sweet, softly. My father too--although his love was more gruff, harder around the edges."I know the horse threw you, get back on it!" (chuckle) Between them, life on an isolated ranch in the Colorado rockies shaped me. My two sisters were great pals--I, in the middle--classically was more of a loner. But there was love.

School years passed, tenth grade bringing sweet first infatuation...inept awkward advances, hasty kisses and stolen moments. I would have sworn to you I was "in love" while now, looking back, I had merely scratched the surface of such a thing--barely inhaled a waft of its scent. The pain of that separation was staggering at the time...but it would not be the last.

As we live...we love. We fling about this word and apply it to movies, cars, ice-cream...nail polish. We seek it in our friendships, our pets, long for it in novels, sing about it at the top of our lungs in the shower. (my college roomies would testify to this) We dabble in physical contact attempting to make a soul-deep connection. Each experience--every joyful discovery and then exploration and celebration...and then disappointment and the injury of the end....adds dimension to the enigma of love.

I used to believe that true love was when someone would adore me and make me laugh and we'd romp and play. Sure enough, my first husband was just this. We traveled, lived in Mexico, explored jungles in Guatemala...and I was shocked to find myself...lonely. For the first time I realized that he didn't...get me. He liked the fun, happy, laughing me....but not so much the "first on the scene of an accident" organize people and stop the bleeding and the weeping me when we lost her. The quiet that followed that night...dark poetry. He didn't want that.

We returned to the states and had a son. There--in the agony of labor--my heart was cleaved in two and I discovered the depth of maternal love. Love that captures your breath, that you would give anything and perish for. And the remarkable miracle that it can happen again, with my second son....the mystery that is the human phenomenon of unlimited love. To unearth this well that never ran dry...was stunning. I couldn't love enough...I couldn't kiss enough or hold or cry myself empty. There was always more.

Parental love amazed me. Taught me. Tested and pushed and rewarded me. And despite this...I was lonely. For parental love--even at its peak--is a one way path for the first 15 years or so. I have known others that have twisted this. Asking for hugs, instead of giving. Taking rather than providing...and in our nation of broken homes and shattered hearts--this can happen without realization, without notice. But the cost to a child is immense.

I needed more. I was....alone.

Divorce.

Strangely, the days passed settling into the routine of life. The routines that save us. When a part of our heart, our soul...shuts down.

My quest for love has spanned decades. And as I've plumbed the depths of my own self, so I've realized that there are so many kinds of love...but a single definition for me: the people that love me...get me. It's not always fun. It's not always easy...and it's certainly not simple. It's a bit like the weather. Seasons. Storms and sunshine, wind and hail...once in a while there's a hurricane. But this "weather" brings us the air we need to breathe...hot, cold, wet, or angry--we breathe.

My best friend knows that on rainy days...when the sky is black and tumultuous clouds roil above...my bones ache on these days. But I paint. I must. She knows.

My new husband called today. My voice sounded a bit off. He asked what was wrong, and I miserably told him, "we're out of cheese." He shouted at the top of his lungs into the phone, "OH MY GOD, HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?!?" which reduced me to a puddle of giggles on the living room floor. He gets me.

When you find someone who will rearrange his entire day to leave work early enough to get to the deli before it closes....to buy cheese. It's love.

Faith. In you.

2010-02-19T04:45:00.000-05:00

Sometimes....the world fades a little. Like there's a breeze leeching the vibrancy....the colors pale. This seems to happen several times a year to me. It's not a seasonal thing, or scheduled maintence or based on the phases of the moon...

It's my heart.

You see, I believe so passionately in the human spirit, our capacity for love and growth and inspiration...and yet, I am surrounded by a gangrene so hideous that at times it bleaches the sun.

Usually it starts with a movie release. A horror. I'm not sure why this traumatizes me so...perhaps it is just that when you have actually lived through horror....it's no longer entertaining. Divorce, illness, depression, grief--as awful as all of those things are--the kind of mindless terror and true belief that you will die...paralyzes. I'm amazed at our ability to find the pain and anguish of another, amusing. Don't get me wrong--I've watched my own share of NCIS (who doesn't want to dress up as Abbey for halloween??) and didn't miss a single Die Hard, but it's another category here......where suffering and gore....tear at the soul.

That's usually the start.

Then there is a trip to the grocery. (chuckle) Is it some undeniable ancestral urge--the cannibal caveman who must hunt...gather....and shove old ladies out of the way to get to the bananas?! I mean, the behavior I have seen in the cracker isle is abhorrent! Swearing at the meat man, berating the pharmacy-tech with the cute glasses....what in the hell? Seriously. The bank teller.

As we travel through our daily lives, weaving our hours, our worlds--with the people that surround us....hellos, excuse mes, thank yous and hold-a-door....the dance we are born into that is life itself, we intertwine. There may be a pause in the music, but there is always the dance. And it seems that there are these times....when I begin to ache inside. They're not dancing...but fighting. All about me--not for a cause, but for the malignant thrill of the fight. A toxic war of demands. The verbal slaughter that ricochets off the stands at my son's football games...the complaining. Catty, jealous, angry...the accusations--everything is "someones" fault. Whose.....ours? Mine?

I can feel my soul begin to bleed.

The news, political stabbing, power hungry.....wolves that circle. Mothers who leave infants abandoned. The men who cheat, the women that manipulate everyone around them in search of triumph....only to find themselves alone. Violence--by children. Where have we gone, what have we forgotten....where is our faith?

In love. In goodness. The remarkable. God and family and....tangible truth. Honest wrath, payment for crime, reparation....restoration. Where has mankind gone that we create such hell...and then choose to live in it? The damage we do is titanic.

I cringe. I shy away...I begin to falter.

And here...I tell you now, that while I have indeed found healing in the arms of my husband and the eyes of my children....I've also found an unbelievable fountain of renewal here. Right here.

The electrical link that ties you and I together...not by need. Not by trajectory or proximity...but by choice. In the midst of this destructive, nauseating, pedestrian mess of insanity that leaves me gasping for air....I find a breeze. Warmth. Minds of such beauty, such joy. Souls that appreciate, that love.....that nourish.

Kindred. Hearts that beat for promise and priorities and passion. Wit, intelligence, creativity; satire, laughter...pain--yes, but healing too. Where loyalty and forgiveness still live.

Resplendent color. Glorious lucid pigment.

Some days...I weave myself with the masses. My faith chips away, piece by piece--chisels clutched in sweaty hands that pound and scrape at my vision of humanity.

And dusk...finds me empty. Done.

But there is a window...framed and full of sunlight. Poetry, dreams, the mundane and the amazing. Family and future. Aspiration, humor, endurance...the smell of tomorrow.

You are there...our minds entwine....and faith is renewed.

Olives

2010-02-08T04:21:00.000-05:00

I’ve become a foodie. *sigh* You see us in the market--we’re actually sorting through the green onions…people wonder why. We debate over tomatoes, compare squash. The evil eye has been shown in the bakery. Seriously though, have you not just sat back and marveled at the wave, the surge....the tsunami of rebirth in the world of the edible? Once you begin to follow that lovely yellow train of thought (permeated with lemon zest and grated ginger) you could nearly bathe in the ocean of culinary programming. The food network couples with the world of PBS member weekends lavishing granny's biscuits and church picnic endorphin euphoria. TLC satisfies your quick urges with Weeknight Meals and Bourdain makes one absolutely yearn for lovely crispy pieces of porkish delight. Julie and Julia brought us to tears. Rachael Ray perks up your dreary afternoons while Tyler's Ultimate adds inches in theory alone. All the while, desire begins to burn....

Why settle for ordinary burgers with imitation american--when gorgonzola filled patties of ground steak mountained with crispy onion fries await thee? The promise of gastronomical heaven is just around the corner....do you see it? Just there...beyond the tuna helper and oodles of noodles....

My waist has grown. As has my dream of an Italian wine tour with me in a long, empire white dress, hair flowing down my back...my eyelashes make shadows on my cheeks as I glance over my glass of sangria....um.....ahem. Where was I? Oh yes. The cost of my food addiction. My family has had meals covered in cheeses they cannot pronounce. I have gone grocery shopping with a list of 27 things and come home with 42. All because Ina said potato salad had to have fresh dill....and pickles...and homemade mayo. And lemon zest. I have scandalized the PTA with chili and anise biscotti at the "Spirit" bakesale...and flaunted my fabulously empty trays as I SOLD OUT before their brownies were half gone. I have experimented with scrod.

I find this rediscovery freakishly aligned to our nation's return to the indigenous. The authentic. I felt this realignment of the universe far before the economic shift so please don't plead poor...it's too real for that. I think there is simply a vacancy left from years of fast food and microwavable wonders. We actually feel a space....a vacuum as we dispose of plastic wrappers and cardboard “heating sleeves.” It's not simply taste bud gratification--but the realization that ultimate satisfaction has a direct and undeniable correlation to investment.

Such is love.

As we travel this life, sometimes slogging--dragging our exhausted limbs through the dust of decisions regretted....sometimes plunging headlong into the glorious clouds that fill a sky of golden promise and bliss...we voyage. We love. I love. I love my husband, my children...the smell of greenhouses. I love poetry and techno; whiskey, freshly painted toenails, and cheese.

I love olives.

Life is a bowl of olives....you can eat it simply, or crammed with decadent dairy delight....soaked in spirits, sliced over salads, baked into bread and meat and fish....and every way. Every time. Is delicious. However, beware the ignorant one who snatches such a thing from the vine...bitter sour venom will be their reward. So is recompensed the gentle hand that gathers...sifts, sorts, washes and dries. The hand that saturates in lovely oils and herbs, folding the fruit in layers of luscious flavor for time to fill with magic...the bounty that awaits is splendid indeed.

Such is love.

Could the resurgence of our savory obsession be connected with the disintegration of our impermeable hearts? Which turned out to not be so resilient. We wrestle with independence even as we ache to belong. The contradiction and conflict that riddle our decisions is nearly overwhelming. 60 hour work weeks, 24/7 child care, instant food, abated sleep, short hand lives. Quality is better than quantity....and then. The realization that two days in Belize is not even close to nine eating hot dogs and listening to the crickets while you count the stars. That "date nights" can never fully replace weekday snuggles and toddler-interrupted scrabble games. Dried herbs will never taste the same as fresh...especially those that grew slowly...on the porch next to the daisies, drenched in sunshine and surrounded by laughter.

No matter how it's frosted or glazed, life is better done slowly. Slow roasted. Slow kisses. Microwave a love affair and I'll show you a pending divorce. "Just add hot water" to freeze dried parenthood and weep...as the canyon between child and parent gapes wider. There is no instant life.

And so I cook. I research how to draw the essence from a lobster broth...and from my husband's heart. I seek answers to why my milk curdled too quickly or the quiche was dry. I seek for hours to understand my sons…their dreams, their hopes. The television raves over faster, easier, cheaper....when the result is exactly that. Fast, easy & cheap. Not worth a damn.

Today, tonight...hug longer. Kiss slower. As you simmer soup, roast the potatoes....marinate and blend and grill...write recipes for life. For honesty. No lies, not even small ones. No short cuts. Kindness plus admiration mixed with encouragement equals marvelous success. Love without intimacy and vulnerability is like chicken without rosemary...soup without marrow....martinis without olives.

With the passion that we are rediscovering our most organic of delights....may we look at each other. The hunger...the appetite. May we take the time to cultivate, weed, harvest, and savor the relationships that give life itself meaning.

Love is like olives. Fancy, plain, in the morning or late in the night....they're absolutely splendid.

Metamorphosis

2010-02-04T04:17:00.000-05:00

Someone once told me, "a person can make good decisions, but people are stupid." I rebelled. My generally optomistic, the damn-glass-is-half-full (hopefully of whiskey) nature leans toward assuming the best. I've been known to spout "maybe he's just lost" reasoning as to why the idiot in traffic cut me off nearly impaling my front teeth on the steering wheel as he whipped across three lanes to an exit leaving paint on the guardrail. He just didn't SEE me.....right? That awful woman in the market just 'had a bad day.' The bagger at the grocery that smashed your bagels in with your fabric softener so your breakfast tasted vaguely of fabreeze just wasn't "trained right."
.

But then...alarming awakening.

It started when I decided to pick up some Swanson's frozen deal for my grandmother and discovered the words, "Do not eat the plastic film" on the box. Are you serious? The film? I thought that was the best part! Gives a luminescent glaze to the little carrots and a tangy zip to the chicken. I actually considered calling Susie Swanson and telling her that the film was delicious and JUST because I hadn't moved my bowels in two weeks was NO reason to keep me from enjoying it!! Alas, I didn't.

And then last week the boys brought their report cards home. While I am indeed blessed to have honor roll children--I sat in silent stupefication (is that a word?) reading the accompanying note.
.
Tips For A Successful Parent Teacher Conference

1. Arrive promptly or even a few minutes early. Ummm...you're only given a 15 minute slot so being "late" would be bad, right? We all learn that lesson every time we think explicit homicidal thoughts while sitting in the Doctor's waiting room for a 3:30 appointment with a screaming snot-nosed child--at 4:15 because some other idiotic parent was late. Death to those who can't tell time.

2. Begin with positive comments about the teacher or classroom. Wow. What kind of po-dunk moldy rock did you crawl out from beneath that you don't know how to say hello nicely? What prompted this lovely social tip--Mr. Thomas walked in and said, "Nasty place this room, and you're as ugly as Billy said you was."

3. Keep your emotions under control. It's a postal society, I know--but in the midst of the insanity, who "loses control" over a second grader's report card?? Exactly HOW many emotional escapades does it take to inspire such a an admonition? (and do I need to move if this is a regular occurance at our school?)

4. Be open-minded to suggestions from the teacher. Well....gosh darnit, she is the teacher. If she thinks your kid needs to work harder on his handwriting--she's probably right. Rocket science, this is.

5. Express appreciation for the conference. Again, who raised you?? Show appreciation for the person who puts up with your little demon 40 hours a week while attempting to educate him so he's not living in your basement when he's 35? DEAR GOD, say thank you!

And it occurs to me--damn, people are really....just stupid. *sigh* Not in the uneducated "good-hearted-but-can't-pour-piss-out-of-a-boot-if-the-directions-were-on-the-heel" kind of way (you can thank my southern mother for that one); but in a self-centered, oblivious, don't-even-SEE-you-on-the-radar kind of way. Where has this general dysfunction come from? When did parents stop teaching their children to say hello, listen while someone is speaking, and thank them for their time? And then these children grew up....and now they've spawned?

We have to be told not to eat the plastic wrap.

.
Where in the hell are we headed as a society??

Technology advances, entertainment soars, comfort is supreme....and we're losing our humanity. Our common sense is evaporating as quickly as our common manners. Just standing in line at the bank is an education in current swear-word-trends. You'd think that having to wait ten minutes for your turn while a slightly flustered employee who is obviously working their ass off hurries about....is reason to flip out and lose control.
.

Then again, if it can happen over a report card....

Self control. Patience. Respect. These strands that weave a group of people into a community...I feel like I'm watching them fray. Has the cocoon of our independant lives left us not with magnificent wings, but crippled, clawing about on the ground? We're secluding ourselves as surely as a plump catepillar wraps itself in silk. We don't need to interact with anyone to shop for clothes, order pizza...pay our bills, invest in the market...even go to school or work. As we aggrandize our intellectual universe...are we creating a black hole in it's place?

I want butterflies. I want to see my children soar. If it takes all my strength and all my days...I will never settle for rude. Never allow the stupid, the insolent...the loss of the very thing that makes man so capable of such wonders.

I will battle to have sense and manners....become common again.

Onions

2010-01-21T04:26:00.000-05:00

I'd had a rough day. I'd been sued. For someone who takes life and responsibility and respect as fervently as I do--to find yourself in this situation is...unthinkable.

That's what ex's are for.

Needless to say, I won. I had proof in black and white and as the judge uttered the words, "waste of the court's time" I had the supremely euphoric sensation of warmth and absolution flood my taut limbs. Consummate relief...exoneration.

That night, as I lay in the arms of my husband, we talked of life. We've both been through so much...enough it seems, to fill more than one lifetime. Do you ever feel that way? All my yesterdays and once-upon-a-times don't really add up....they equal more than their sum of parts. And it's not necessarily comfortable.

Carl Sandburg was the original Shrek poet. "Life is like an onion, you peel it off one layer at a time and sometimes you weep." (chuckle) I rather prefer the movie's interpretation--although I must admit that I am in love with onions. Sauteed until soft and juicy, caramelized dreamily and delicious....crisp with cheese and crusty bread--onions rock. Daily I slice and chop and segment...stews, roasts, chili, risotto. Omelets, fajitas, egg rolls...seriously, onions are in everything! Their succulent layers sweet and spicy and sometimes hot and sometimes...rotten.

I purchased a bag of onions in a dead run through the market on a hurried Wednesday--only to discover that half had gone bad. Really bad. Rotten potatoes got nuthin' on them onions. (shudder)

"People are like onions...." Our layers...are there. To be seen or shared or hidden; sometimes sliced away and put to compost as we re-invent ourselves after a culinary disaster. Uncommonly, the translucent reality of a life lived true reveals all...but so rare. Moreoften, when there is so much--mountains done right, and epochs done wrong......what is really.....us?

Are we merely a sum of our layers? I asked my husband, "What if no one knew what I have done? Where I've been? Would it change how they feel about me?" Like if you went to a party and no one was allowed to say what their job was or what they had accomplished. Perhaps, you could just say, "I'm Chantel...and I like...."

No "My father was a treasury agent and I was raised on a ranch...with no tv."

"My parents had a pet bobcat who bit me in the neck when I jumped into the bottom bunk."

"I can make cheese."

"I was a missionary in Guatemala. I worked in health clinics and orphanages and bathed in a river with snakes."

"I was the executive director of....but I also once worked in Hardees."

"My first marriage failed."

"I was raised on goat milk."

What if no one knew....if I was just.....me.

Am I merely an onion? Are you?

I want to be loved and appreciated not just for where I've been or what I've done--because there have been SO many mistakes along the way. Dear Lord--the things we hide, even from ourselves. My triumphs have been marvelous--and my failures staggering. In between, I have grown.

You hear often, "listen more, speak less" and this is my intention. For where I have been, the stories I could tell...perhaps I need to just....stop. I am me. Not the past...not even what I might become. Just me.

Is that enough?

Deathswitch.com

2010-01-11T10:55:00.000-05:00

It's a lazy Sunday evening. Dusk has settled, turning the bleak white world outside into a sea of diamonds refracting the prism of the streetlights. If I hold my breath I can hear the faint tic-tic of icy crystals on the window glass. I'm waiting for the kettle...listening to the gentle murmur of the radio that eternally plays on in my kitchen. I'm one of those people that rises to coffee and music; take them away and you lose me. I spend hours alone in this room, roasting and basting; with flour on my nose and the scent of fresh basil and lemons lingering on my hands. I absorb the world through the voices that keep me company. As I stand lost in the swirl of my own thoughts, something slices through...a phrase captures me.

Deathswitch.com.

Quite a remarkable idea actually. It's a service...of sorts. The tag line of the site, "Bridging Mortality." It promises to pass on critical information should you perish unexpectedly. You create an account and begin the process of writing letters and attaching files. To your boss and co-workers--passwords and information. Loved ones, family...they suggest final wishes, bank account information, love notes....and unspeakable secrets.

What would I have to say? If I knew I had only tonight...that dawn would bring my death. What letters would I write? To whom....what have I left unsaid? The crushing weight of conviction then....it dimmed the icy light outside. I looked down, tracing the pattern on the edge of my empty mug. More has remained unspoken than should.

The hours of the night left me time to examine this. Why has this compilation...this pocket of unvoiced thoughts and anger and sadness and love....why have I let it accumulate so? As I sifted through memories, I lingered over ones still tender. Life does indeed persist--despite our deepest wishes in the midst of anger, pain or devastation. Even perfect joy doesn't last no matter how I clutch and cling. The ocean of minutiae surges daily to engulf us in waves of...living. We breath, we eat, we lust, we fight, we love...and we leave so much unspoken.

This site, you set your "check-in" times--daily, weekly, once a year. If you miss a check-in they will attempt to contact you. After a period of time, your "death switch" is triggered and the letters sent. Watching the light of the new day creep through the trees...I wonder how people decide to wait, to hold onto these things that are critical enough that they must endure past their final breath. I wish I could read some...what naked honesty must lie in the digital memory of that site. What insight into the soul of regret and repression. What is so vital and yet simultaneously trivial that you can live without it being spoken...but you cannot die that way.

The house is chilly. The sounds of early morning surround me...groggy children, the distant thud of a closing drawer...the cat wants out. I brush my teeth. Pushing the sleeves of my robe up, I wash the night from my skin. And I stand there. My reflection with no make-up, no gloss...no pretense. My hair tangled from slipping in bed with it damp, my faded freckles visible. Not as the world sees me...but how I truly am, just me. I'm appalled that I have an unspoken file. I believe so strongly in honesty with love and truth with integrity....and I have been mute.

The gurgle of brewing coffee draws me downstairs, ruffling my eldest's hair as I pass. I will tell him...that the point of the lecture--of every lecture--is just that I love him. I will write my sister and assure her that the pain of our childhood has passed...and though perhaps not believed, I'm done with it. I will whisper into my husband's ear that petty arguments are never worth missing a single night of the bliss I find in his arms. Cherish my neighbors, appreciate more...confront. The new year has begun....

I will de-activate my death switch.

Quickie Lessons

2009-12-22T06:14:00.000-05:00

1. Check the laundry. Children leave legos and crayons in their pockets. The visiting elderly leave poise.

Both f-up the washer.

2. Celery is from hell. If you're at a Christmas party and they have celery on the table....leave. Go next door where they have brie baked in puff pasty layered with butter next to "taco dip", thousand calorie eggnog, and cookies named "fluff my ass."

3. I am damn old. One weekend...two parties. (fri & sat eves....um...yeah, I mean a.m.'s) Christmas shopping in between. Sunday I couldn't MOVE. I ate crackers. O.M.G.

4. Rushing to leave the house in a tornado hurry so you don't miss the BOGOs at K-mart means that if by CHANCE you shut the cat in the coat closet for nine hours....you will pay.

5. Spending two hours painting my toenails a provocative slick crimson and braving four inches of snow in my open toed, kick ass heels...totally was worth it when the "party bitch's" husband commented how sexy my feet were.

6. Those of you who were hoping for lessons on having quickies.....oh, I am so going there next.

Holiday Hell: Part 1

2009-12-15T06:02:00.000-05:00

It's Christmas.

Crap.

I can honestly say that we are....eight days from lift off. I have three children. And I'm like...12 percent done with my shopping. Maybe 13. While I might justify this with "last minute sales" and "BOGO on legos at K-Mart," the reality is that I've been.....traumatized.

Episode 1: Retard.

It's a mutter-word. We all think shit we'd never say outloud. We might murmur it, whisper it, snarl under our breath...but we don't actually say it. Until you're in Wal-mart, searching for the "legos with the motors." "The what?" "Mo-ohhhm, the MOTORS!" Yeah. And there I am. Ditched the boys in video games to cause havoc with anyone actually shopping for something--and I'm in the lego isle....and "What RETARD stocked these little...." And there he was--my 10 yr old. Owl eyes... lookin' at me.

"Um...."

We get in the car. "Dad, mom said retard." Little shit told on me.

Episode 2: Decorating

When you plan ahead for a Kodak moment...conspire to out-do Norman Rockwell...engineer holiday-licious delight...you are doomed.

Hot cocoa, Christmas tree, mistletoe and merry, carols on the stereo. Cinnamon candles mingle with orange and cloves....I've got star shaped marshmallows for goodness sake! I actually had cookie dough to bake afterwards. After...Deco-Night. That evening--with glinting sparkles, stockings hung, holiday cheer so thick you could cream your coffee. There was a ladder. In the foyer. I love the dark wood and trim and tile--it sold me this house in 3 seconds flat. Such potential!

Boxes of twinkle lights, a hammer, nails....jingle bells ringing--I call the boys. My 8 yr-old flies down the stairs and launches himself into my arms. The crack of his forehead against my jaw was audible all the way to the kitchen.

I reel....spinning, his body clings to mine I teeter and SMASH into the ladder. It whips over and crashes to the floor...pinning the cat's tail to the tile. Yowling like a cheetah, he flips backwards, pees on the floor, and falls down the stairs into the basement. Distant thrashing sounds are heard. Child and I gyrate across the room and descend upon the SINGLE live plant to be seen. Obliterated. Rebounding, we absolutely decimate the box of chocolates intended for the mailman.

We found the cat. Briefly. Disposed of the plant, ate the chocolates--never got to the lights. The mailman is getting skittles.

Episode 3: Library

Is there a place more warm, more inviting, more the embodiment of educational envelopment of our deepest aspirations than...the library. Especially when this particular library is actually a renovated Victorian mansion. We're talking FIREPLACES. Gorgeous woodwork, staircases....and as I enter, that smell--ancient knowledge, intelligence...good carpet. I approach the desk. She's so...librarian. She's savvy, clever, witty--you can just tell. And she was wearing holiday fluff. Wowza. Flashing Christmas tree earrings were competing with the battery powered candy cane that hung glowing from her pine-green sweater vest edged with gold thread and embroidered stars. She even had a Santa ring. There was garland in her hair.

"Please, can you help me resolve my son's over-due account?" She paused. She calculated. I was: an offender.

"Uh...he's eight. It was Thanksgiving break and he was with my ex and...." "HE OWES FIVE DOLLARS AND FIFTY CENTS." "Er...you don't have to shout--I'm right here..." "FIVE DOLLARS AND FIFTY CENTS!" At this point people were beginning to stare. "Ok, do you take debit?" "CASH ONLY." Um...(sweat beading on my upper lip, shifting my purse...I could smell my deodorant) "I'll be back with the--" "HE CANNOT TAKE ANYTHING OUT UNTIL THIS IS PAID." I smiled. I leaned over the counter...and hissed, "you say anything else and I'll fake a seizure and pee on your rug."

It still amazes me, the power of urine. She blanched. I later learned she was subbing....not a regular. If I ever find her home base...

Episode 4: The Party

Everyone has those "overload" weeks. Mine just happen to...breed.

Remember the gremlins. Dear God.

So I accepted a new position on Thursday--only to learn I was to teach a 6 hour english class in FOUR days. The next morning I was notified my ex was suing me. Sick kids, crazy family and a cat that has recently discovered the ability to piss in my basement without repercussion until the furnace kicks on. Damn if I don't wake up in the ER. Friday night, inescapable pain in the left side of my head. Passed out. They scanned my brain a few times, shot me full of morphine, wrote some scrips, sent me home with a neuro apt. Did I mention that SATURDAY we had a 50+ rsvp holiday bash planned with KIDS at our home? Shoot me now.

I co-host.

Awesome girlfriend....who called at 11:28am Saturday to tell me that she was ill and unable to make it.

*gulp*

I am NOT advocating parties on narcotics.

HOWEVER. Oxy-blah blah rocks. Decorated, cooked, dressed....kicked the damn cat out of the house and burned half a box of Nag Champa....and the mulled wine was killer. At 2:45am I kissed the last guest good-bye....and finished the merlot. I think.

Last night I watched "Olive, The Other Reindeer."

Bring it on.

The Art of Anticipation

2009-12-09T04:44:00.000-05:00

I was the photographer for a wedding this summer. It was a lusciously hot August day. Sublime sunshine and aquamarine skies were the perfect backdrop to a garden wedding at the conservatory. The bride was stunning, the groom elegantly handsome...perfection. Time raced by, my camera catching delighted grins, sheepish smiles, fairy-like little girls dancing in the grass. Hands holding, cheeks blushing, stolen kisses and tender glances... As the day melted slowly into evening I filled roll after roll of film with joy. Moments suspended like crystal stars that will be gazed at, held, cherished by many for generations to come.

As I snapped couple after couple, there came a moment with one member of the bridal party that I still smile over. She was funny, beautiful, and she gave me her glass when I was trapped sweltering on the sidewalk awaiting guests--earning my eternal gratitude. She wanted some pictures with her boyfriend and of course I obliged. As I turned and calculated lighting and space and angle I asked them to pose. I said, "now I want you to look at each other...click...and now slowly move to kiss her...click...and now--wait." They froze, half an inch from each other, the world lost as they gazed into each other's eyes...click.

They kissed, they laughed and pulled apart and she turned to look at me--a bit flustered. "Trust me," I said, "you're going to love that picture."

I have one of my husband and I, taken by a friend on the beach. Our lips seconds from contact. Every time I look at it I find I'm holding my breath. That moment the anticipation was like liquid fire in my veins. The pounding of my heart, the heat of expectation....the contemplation of the possible...the perhaps...

I believe anticipation is a shy thing. An experience that must be grown, cultivated, nurtured. Our current society seems to rest foundationaly on a quaking platform of instant gratification. The multitudes demand, and they receive. Do you remember the most simple desire and satisfaction as a child? Being thirsty on a trip to the store..."we'll be home soon." And that cool dulcet splash of water was delicious as it slid down your throat 20 minutes later. Now there's a convenience store on every corner to meet your immediate needs. Love that name, "convenience" store. Perhaps all of this 'convenience' is slowly eroding our ability to desire, long for...ache for something. Not just want. Wanting is the puddle, the shallow end of a two yr-old's reach for a new toy.

Anticipation is a discipline. It takes willpower to wait. I could never hope to count how often I have children hanging on the kitchen doorway as the aromas of dinner fill the house, begging for a snack. What? I've just spent 7 hours slowly roasting and basting and carving. The bread is baking, the veges simmering....and you want crackers? I think not! My mother always said, "appetite is the best ingredient." (chuckle) Oh, how I now agree with her...being hungry, is good. No matter the subject...being hungry is delicious.

As this holiday season is spinning about me, draping the world with brilliant lights and glittery snow...I am holding my anticipation close. Embracing the excitement, the thrill of the unknown in the sparkling packages beneath our tree, in new adventures, new horizons, sunrises. I'm swimming deep into the ocean of promise, not just for Christmas morning, but the new year. The new season before me. Learning to listen more, talk less. I am guarding my heart against the easy invasive wants that swarm us and threaten to choke. I will go hungry, I will desire, I will pause....for the taste of anticipation is succulent.

Appreciation

2009-11-22T05:38:00.000-05:00

It's been weeks since I wrote. Half out of my control...half internal "take a breath." But then...crap happens.

I was standing in line at the grocery store. It was the middle of the afternoon on a sunny day...one of those crisp days, like apple pie and golden leaves. I had filled my cart with roots to roast--turnips and parsnips and sweet potatoes. Fresh rosemary, a loaf of garlic bread, brie to wrap in pastry and bake...and I arrived at check-out. Three lines open, two carts in each--throw the dice, right? I park. Now, I might add to this mental picture that the attached liquor store was having a "tasting" which meant I had three choices of merlot to sample as I waited...yum. (chuckle) However, it was very shortly apparent that things were amiss.

The cashier was in his early 20's. Kinda scruffy, rugged around the edges, well mannered, but needed a good meal. (smile) He was polite, nice...tired. And the two carts in front of me....wow. Soon after my first sip of a dark californian blend I noticed--she was swearing at him. She was the same age as he. There was a baby in the cart...and she had a pack of WIC checks in one hand and a cell phone in the other. She ridiculed him. It was so obvious he was new, nervous...she was that "pretty" that had faded...paled. Highlights a little too white, black eyeliner a little too thick, cherry lips that pulled back over viciously sharp teeth--ready to bite. She asked if he was stupid. She joked about his blush with the girl behind her who also had a stack of checks and an "access" card.

His pain was palpable. It radiated from his reddened cheeks as he struggled to put the numbers in the system, calculate the credit...scan the specific food. He cringed as he told her the juice she had chosen wasn't covered, and physically cowered as she raged at him. When it was all done and he had fed her checks into the register....she asked for four packs of cigarettes and pulled out a wad of 20's to pay for them.

I gripped the bar of my cart so hard I knew I would have bruises later.

She sneered. She laughed with the girl behind her--this one also in her twenties, with two kids hanging on the sides of her cart and her belly stretched tight with a third....she swore. Language that made me gasp--actually out loud--so that they both looked at me. She tossed her cheese and milk carelessly on the belt, "What, you got a problem with that??"

As the previous director and executive director of numerous early childhood centers and preschools-- I was speechless. Dumbfounded. Outraged. I fumbled....me, with what I've done--the places I've been, I fumbled. I stepped back. At this point it had been 40 minutes. I'd watched four other people get in line behind me...observe....check out the other lines....then smile almost apologetically, and move over. I watched them leave. There was some part of my mind that was screaming for me to just SWITCH LINES! What on earth was the big deal?? Just "move along".....

But there was a day. One day. Warm, indian summer that year...when a single mom....with worn out sneakers, a cranky toddler and a hungry two yr old...she stumbled into the welfare waiting office 4 minutes before her appointment. She wiped the tears from her cheeks. She was horrified. Three months ago she was a stay-at-home mom. A wife.

That caseworker told me I was what she lived for....that I was someone who had worked since I was 17 and had paid into this system and that is was a pleasure to help me when I really needed it. She was amazing. She took one of the most humbling....awful moments in my life....and filled it with kindness. I have never been so grateful. So thankful. With that green plastic card came the ability to feed my boys meat. Doctor appointments and immunizations. I gave up selling plasma.

I have stood in many lines wic checks in hand, cheese and milk and juice....and never fathomed ridiculing the person who's very taxes was paying for my meals. I stood humbled...appreciating every mouthful of food, every gulp of milk.

Four months and my life was different. I signed a lease, a contract....I sold a painting, opened a center. I smiled as I hugged my caseworker and told her goodbye. I was done. Years have gone by.....for every frightened mother that I have held, connected, and cheered on as they landed on their feet.... For every proud and hungry parent I have urged in the direction of help...even when it hurt. For every moment that I have understood people who are struggling....I have been grateful for that time. There is no replacement for walking in a pair of shoes.

But what have we become?

How is it that there is a wave of people....that ridicule those of us that work forty, fifity hours a week--god awful black cold early mornings....late nights comforting your son because you missed his Christmas play to handle an employee emergency? How did that happen? I have LIVED the life of a "family supported." I have been there. Not for a moment....a single instant did I not know that the food on my child's plate came from the table, the paycheck, the taxes of someone who got up and went to work.

I raise my boys now. I watch them....watching me. How do I teach them this? How do we teach appreciation?

I've been told that appreciation is the child of "without."

Doing without....is this the seed? For every day you go without the jeans that everyone else had in 7th grade--is this what makes them magical? Every day you eat hamburger helper....isn't that what makes lobster heavenly? Every lonely night...makes the arms of a loved one priceless.

Every day you sell plasma and give your kids mac and cheese for breakfast.....

Is there a waiting period? How do you take a significant portion of our society and make them understand what it is to do without....when they never do.

I'm truly lost here. I stood in that line. For an hour. When I started unloading the lukewarm milk and brie from my cart, the chashier said to me, "If you're wic, get out of my line." I smiled. I told him he was doing an excellent job. His shoulders unknotted....he turned, watching their carts as they left. I wanted to tell him they weren't normal. They weren't...what we were working for. He and I...standing together on a warm fall afternoon....wondering what the world was coming to.

Reality Check

2009-10-31T06:49:00.000-04:00

What is real? I've spent hours, days....sunshine, rain, poetry, painting....months of my life contemplating what is real. Tangible. Is it only what we touch? What touches us? Is the wind real? Are my paintings real? They're dreams....wishes. Are wishes real?

My sister recently told me she was considering deleting her entire facebook profile. She's had a tough year...and the world is filled with people who don't know when to say nothing. Silence can be such a gift. Our relationship grew a great deal the day I told her, "I love you but I have no idea what you're feeling....I can only imagine and I fear I will come up short. I have no advice, only ears. I love you." She started to cry. She thanked me. She's had enough empty husks of brittle comfort that crumble for lack of substance or truth.

About facebook, she said, "It isn't real." And I was shocked. "Did you think it was?" I mean, my sister is an incredibly intelligent woman; to listen to her dismay over this--threw me. Have we come that far in society? That this fabricated wireless world should qualify as real? But wait--I mean, it is....right? You're real...sorta. Somewhere out there, hundreds, thousands of miles away sometimes--there is a person of flesh and blood that is reading these words...thinking about them...emotionally responding to them....but are you real to me? Maybe you're only real when you write back? What if what I write means nothing to you? If the wind blows but there is nothing to move in it.....

Words are real. The joy and the agony they can infuse is palatable. There have been times when the cruelty of another has left an iron tang in my mouth like bile...or blood. Bitter venom that sickened me. I've known a physical surge of sensual pleasure from fevered whispered words. I've know paralyzing fear, soul wrenching sorrow. These are real--I know this to be true....but perhaps there are levels of reality? Is comfort more real when someone softly wipes the tears from your cheek rather than sends a *((hug))* on your screen? Is that white hot surge of anger more real when you find your car window smashed than when you read a vicious attack on your character? Has our new anonymous world lost the sense of reality? Have we begun to unconsciously loose ourselves, our "realness," in atmospheric communication?

My children recently have resisted going to my ex's for his weekend. When questioned, they told me that, as it was Halloween weekend, they wanted to be at our house...in our neighborhood. Further discussion revealed that while he and his new wife have lived in their home for 3 or 4 years, they know no one on their street. No one. I truly do not mean to compare so readily, but we purchased our home and moved in barely 4 months ago and have met, laughed, shared beer and hung out with nearly every family on our block! Our kids play, wander in and out of each other's homes--we've had a ladies potluck lunch that was a blast and in a week are throwing a party they're all coming to! My point being.....how on earth do you not know your neighbors?? How is it possible to live for years someplace and still be strangers? When my husband was in the hospital recently, I came home to discover that my neighbor mowed my "could-bale-hay" lawn. I cover her son's four-wheeler with a tarp if I find it's blown off. We live together.....sharing air, and parking spaces, and....life. I find it almost incomprehensible that one would live that obscurely. Is that kind of community real?

We have become almost...nameless. Hell, I'm the first to say I love the movies, a great book, my blog life--I joke that I passionately adore my "vicarious enjoyment of others lives." Yet, have we gone too far? Have we reached the point of consuming another's experiences, emotions...their pain or joy, like sushi--and then we have the privilege of just...disengaging? Has our distance, our removal from the genuine intimacy of relationships....have we begun to lose what is truly real?

There was a time when you only personally knew the life stories of your companions, perhaps friends of friends or relations. The death of a child or spouse was felt by the literal absence, the vacancy of their smile. When someone lost their job you noticed their car disappeared...and they got thinner. Now, it's just numbers on a screen. Words that you digest...perhaps respond to "in the moment"...and then click to the next screen, the next news story, your e-mail, your bank account. Life shifts seamlessly from one subject to the next with little real consequences.

There is a novel series called Otherland by Williams . It explores the futuristic world where virtual reality has become the central venue for business, education and entertainment. Can you imagine if you just "plugged in" and were able to literally feel, taste, smell whatever you wanted!? Sex. Pain. Ecstasy. Fear. Friendship. From sailing a pirate ship through a raging storm to giving birth to...committing murder. You could experience anything. Everything. Experiences with no consequence.

Are we close?

Technology is advancing at a terrifying pace. I fully expect to see this in my life. We are taking steps daily toward this...anonymity. What is real? You can create a star or decimate a career with the right words. We can choose to comfort a hurting friend or simply ignore a chat request when we're too tired.

I am challenged. I am slightly frightened. This two dimensional world on my laptop threatens to substitute flesh...contact. I will open my door, step outside....connect...touch.

I can feel the wind on my skin. It's real.

Grandma-paloosa

2009-10-27T09:01:00.000-04:00

Last week we had my 93 year old grandmother come to stay with us. While this was exciting in the "investigate your family roots" kinda way--it also was rather....involved. It began with moving our first floor office which resembled d-day in Hiroshima into my second floor studio. This would be the studio that has paint--everywhere. As I'm shoving book cases and filing cabinets into corners I'm wondering exactly how pissed my husband will get if he discovers yellow ochre on his computer screen one afternoon...I mean there are levels of pissed-offedness, right? From mildly irritated to the afore mentioned Hiroshima. We usually avoid atomic moments--however, we've never messed with his on-line poker nights before....

But to return to grandma. So I paint the room. It's pressed tin--walls and ceiling, which means that it took about 4 extra gallons of paint and tested my supremely lacking patience. Then there was the Shopping. (sigh) I despise shopping. You can always tell a hostile anti-shopper by the dreaded occurrence of...PURSE SHOULDER. You can spot us three stores away in the mall as we shift our purses from the elbow crook to the left shoulder and then the right...and we begin to sigh. And then whine...and then need to sit down; helplessly massaging our aching bodies, we beg total strangers for coffee (or liquor) while making moaning whimpering noises. I cannot take it. My spirit lags....it nearly always results in a mad dash for a large bottle of merlot on the way home.

But oh, there was shopping! Shopping for rugs, bed frame, mattresses and dresser. Towels, sheets, pillows...even the doily on the night stand. (gotta have a doily for a grandma, right?) And finally--(after the removal of suspicious lightsabers under the bed....poor grandma has no idea what she's in for)--voila!

And the day we've been waiting for....she arrives!

The first day.

The house smells of roasted chicken and rosemary. I have fresh bread rising in the kitchen. Nina Simone sings so sultry....its lovely, warm, welcome little grandma! (she's 4'8"....I am actually 6 feet tall--genetic mutations run in our family) She laughs, she's happy, dinner is delicious....she breaks her teeth in the sink.

Days 2 through 6 pass in a whirlwind of ham, grits, black-eyed peas and cornbread. (did I mention she's southern?) I shop again; sweaters this time--she's cold. We laugh, we talk....we rip three tiles off the shower wall attempting to install the "mighty suction cup handle" that would help her in and out of the bath. I underestimated it's tenacious hold. Note to self: pick up some liquid nails before husband uses the downstairs bathroom.

She left yesterday. The boys were a little sad--my youngest even offered to let her borrow his lightsaber until next time. (she was very confused) However, she did seem to enjoy herself. We reminisced over the summer my sisters and I spent with her and grandpa in Arizona. (grandpa told me I could catch a rabbit if I put salt on it's tail....and grandma spent hours removing cactus prickles from my bum with tweezers as a result) There was a spanking with a fly swatter that summer too...and I learned to play poker.

Grandma returns in two weeks. My mother needs knee surgery and I've volunteered to keep little grandma while she recovers. Sawyer asked me last night, "will we have to eat cornbread again?" Brennan wants to know where his lightsaber is. Noah said we can put his pumpkin in her room.

I told him that might frighten her. He agreed.

At least the shopping is done.

Fairy Ire

2009-10-22T14:13:00.000-04:00

My Dearest Brennan,

I'm on my way to Toledo where there was an unfortunate accident involving a soccer ball and a nine year-old's face leading to his immediate need of payment for not one--but THREE teeth. I must say, I skipped your house last night because just when I was about to open your window, I heard you tell your brother that you no longer believed in the Tooth Fairy! You swore that you saw your mother sneaking out of your room last month with the note in her hand. (Remember? When you accidentally swallowed your tooth at lunch with your peanut butter sandwich so you had to write me a letter and draw a picture of it? By the way, smashing picture of a tooth!)

Anyway, I want you to know I skipped you and your tooth last night because you hurt my feelings. (sniff) How on earth could you possibly believe that your mother--who usually has a glass of wine or three by 10pm--could actually make it in and out of your booby-trapped room without waking you up? (yes, I know all about the ropes and nets--do you really think you can catch a fairy?) However, you most certainly would catch your dexterously challenged mother should she venture in to check on you....and then she might have to spend like an hour and a half trying to reset the traps while giggling so hard she brained herself on your dresser, tripped over your skateboard, and landed in your leggo box where the space man made a most interesting bruise on her hiney.....all hypothetically, of course....should she attempt to go in.

Yes, well--you'd better stop all this nonsense about not believing in me. Next time I might not be so forgiving. Your mother called me this morning and told me you were sorry--you owe her big. Like I think you should take out the trash for a week.....and clean your room.

And maybe make her a card.

Much love,

The Tooth Fairy

But-less Day

2009-10-20T16:04:00.000-04:00

No this is not about my ass. Much to the despair of those of you who had your hopes up--yes, it needs to be firmer. But that's another issue.

So I'm at the post office. Stand in line, shift feet, check out the good lookin' guy in the raincoat, (the first look is free, my father always says; the second one costs you) shift again. Purchase stamps from depressed ancient matron behind the counter that really needed her roots touched up. (yet again another piece of evidence to support my move toward powdered prozac in splenda packets for emergencies...) Anyway, I step over to the grimy, chewing gum studded counter and prepare to stamp the heck out of my postcards....tap, tap. Someone is taping my shoulder. I turn around and it's this extremely well-dressed older gentleman of Indian persuasion. (as in lamb kabob--not beaded moccasin) He says, "I don't mean to be creepy, but your hair is beautiful."

Dude, if you have to say you don't mean to be creepy--you are.

What is with our nationwide need to preface? I have this motto for all of my friendships, "Say what you mean and mean exactly what you say." It's simple really. No innuendos, no implications. I mean, didn't we all have enough of that in junior high? (and then there was high school and then college....) Isn't there some magic age when we all stop the crap? Someone once told me that "but" negates everything you say before it. An interesting thought to ponder. "I love you, but when you do this...." "Those shoes look great, but..." Hmmm....can we lose the "but?" Perhaps I should circulate a petition that we start a new holiday: "But-less Day."

Oooh, I'm liking this new holiday idea. I could make cards! How many people do you really want to just be honest with?

Dear Neighbor, I like your car. Your dog sucks. Love, Lola. (this would be the neighbor several streets away whose dog must be tied outside--and he is NOT happy about it)

Dear Mailman, You are nice. Why the hell can't you close the mailbox? Love, Lola. (which is what my husband calls me, btw)

Dear Sam, You have great taste in music. Your living room smells like leftover perogies. I adore the color of it! Love, Lola.

No "buts." Don't tell me you don't want to be rude BUT....or that you don't mean to hurt my feelings BUT... Well, if you don't--then flippin' don't! Don't interrupt, don't cut me off, don't "not want to bother me, BUT"...own up. Say it just like it is.

But-less Day. Hip hip Hooray!

Angus McGillicutty

2009-10-17T01:51:00.000-04:00

I don't remember how my cat got a last name. Not ours, for sure--I've never known a "McGillicutty" in my life, but he was one. Nine years of warmth, wrestling, stalking, pouncing and laughter. Five moves, the birth of my second son, my divorce...Angus was there for it all. When I went days without crying so my boys' world would be secure--Angus curled up next to me while I sobbed in the dark. When my youngest, Brennan, was in the hospital after a post-op hemorrhage, Angus slept on his pillow until he returned home.

And now he's gone.

It was a blockage....and the potassium rose in his blood, slowing his heart--there was nothing the vet could do. So sudden...this afternoon I shooed him out of my lap and he stood watching me paint for a while. And 7 hours later he's gone.

We do have another cat, Bartimaeus. Still a kitten, he's kitty skittish and playful. Angus had almost a...languid maturity that I adored. Every year we throw this huge Soup party....last year, 60+ people in our house, and they marveled how Angus lay stretched out in the middle of the living room floor. He was confident in his domain. He observed, supervising the frivolity of the evening...he was king.

My intellectual mind is lecturing my weeping one. How we war within ourselves at times. I called my sister. She said, "I wish I could take your tears away--but crying is the acknowledgement of having truly loved...and lost." She's right. Perhaps the entire purpose of our pets is to practice this grief. To own a pet, to love--anything at all--is to invest with no guarantee of return. Life is so amazing, so beautiful and so fragile. I cannot fathom how you would even breathe after the death of a spouse or child. I know we find strength for what we face in each day. Sometimes I look back at the sinkholes in my past...it took chains and hooks and ropes to haul myself out of a few of those. The human soul is truly astounding in what it can endure.

Today I'm sad. Tomorrow I have to tell my children. Their sorrow will overshadow mine. But they will grow stronger, more compassionate for their pain. My heart aches....

What a crazy, marvelous, piercingly tender world this is.

Contradictions

2009-10-10T16:19:00.001-04:00

I lay on the couch this afternoon and watched tv. Now, that in itself is a tad odd for those of you that know me--but after the manic last 48 hours--I just needed to disengage for a bit. What did I watch? I have that magic comcast remote with the "last" button so you can flip back and forth between two shows easily; I watched the movie Juno simultaneously with Sybll. Um....yeah. My husband hobbled downstairs after a bit and sat with me. He lasted 7 minutes before laughing and shaking his head, he left. Cozy soft cuddly "coming of age" teen love alternates with psycho violent deviance. But thats me.

I think we are more defined by our contradictions than our similarities. I love wine....and whiskey. Munster cheese as well as gorgonzola. Summer and Christmas. Experience, variety, and multiplicity make life--like food...like sex....lol...make for magnificent instead of mediocre. I think this is such a large part of relationships--yet an unbelievably difficult thing at the same time. The world's greatest love stories, the romances that ring in your heart and echo in your mind--are most often the passionate ones filled with fire and conflict. Of course there is sweetness and tenderness...but it is the friction that makes them splendid. I have lived through too many warm milk relationships...they were so...easy. I suppose that's why I got into them. Friends that always agreed with me, a first husband that generally did as I asked....warm white milk. Milk will only sustain you so long. There's just not enough in it. Your muscles atrophy, your hair falls out, your skin fades to paste--milk is fantastic for babies...but we've all grown up.

Now I have a pomegranate and ginger martini of a marriage served in a stiletto glass rimmed with crystallized hot chili sugar! Lol Sometimes I worry that our neighbors are scandalized. Between the arguments and the heated nights...(and mornings and afternoons and....ahem) We are both equally strong-willed and fully armed. Finding my "match" has not exactly been the e-harmony vision that permeates evening television. However, it has been more challenging, more fulfilling, and more life-changing as we have confronted, battled over and eventually embraced our contradictions together.

Everything I needed to know was in a cookie.

2009-10-06T15:36:00.000-04:00

Why couldn't someone have just told me this years ago?? I mean, at the cost of some chunky thighs I could have seriously avoided an assortment of struggles and disasters over the past two decades or so! Then again, there were several therapists that might not have been able to make their "winter retreats" to the Keys...c'mon now, gotta think of the greater good, right? But I digress, back to baked Confucius confections. Gems of wisdom packaged in pastry....Plato-esque panettones.

The fortune cookie could actually replace third grade.

A bit of fragrance clings to the hand that gives flowers. Kindness makes the world go round. There is a mean, dirty, stab-you-in-the-back reality out there waiting for us the minute we step out of the stroller. Bumps, bruises, stolen toys, stolen friends, stolen dreams. Cheaters, stompers, liars and thieves abound. A kind word is sustenance to the soul. A kind hand, salvation in the fire. And after each kindness done, there does linger a sweetness on the giver. You know a kind person almost by the aroma around them. It's in their eyes. You "return kindness." You do unto others... You reap what you sow. In other words: If you scatter thorns, don't go barefoot.

The pleasure of what we enjoy most is lost by wanting more. One word: Halloween. How many sugar daddys does it take to make you puke? Greed is our national disease. It permeates our relationships, our homes, our diets. We are ruled by our appetites--to the extent that it has become a billion dollar business to repair the aftermath of ourselves. Take a step back, breathe, discover fulfillment.

Why not go out on a limb? Isn't that where the fruit is? Remember those notes....the ones that Suzy snuck to you behind her back when Ms. Winter wasn't looking? Crooked writing, torn corners, smudged and bedraggled....but the last line: "Do you like me? Check yes or no." Ahhh... you carry the note. Pondering. Considering the momentous consequences to checking "yes." Oh Matthew, why didn't I mark yes? (sigh) Risk is life. Life is risk. With judgement and balance, reaching for your dream may be the difference between sheer joy and.....pudding. Not that pudding is bad...but there is a world of creme brule', bananas foster, and baked alaska out there.

Worry not that no one knows of you. Seek to be worth knowing. There are entirely too many chimpanzees jumping up and down shouting "Look at me! Look at me!" Character is more critical than glamour, knowledge more salient than volume. You cannot help but glance at the gaudy billboards on the side of the road...but choose carefully which ones you pursue. Often they are merely a viscous slug masquerading as a caterpillar--not a shot in hell of becoming a butterfly.

Alas! The onion you are eating is someone else's waterlily. Appreciation is not found. It is not innate. You do not inherit it. It is the beautiful fruition of suffering. The angst, the pain, the tang in the back of your throat of going without. As we grasp for more, complain about what we have....there are so many that have not. I distinctly remember the day I moaned in self-pity as my gargantuan ten and a half pound baby did somersaults in my tummy--the trip to the grocery store was sheer agony. Until I caught another woman watching me next to the shredded wheat...and again picking out cheese. She finally approached and asked if she could touch my belly. She'd been in a car accident. She would never conceive. Cherish your onion.

And lastly, Great souls have wills, feeble ones have only wishes. Oh, if only I had learned this earlier!! I once read, "The difference between success and failure is not knowledge, skill or resources. It is will." Each of us knows what we should do. To get physically fit, be a better parent, a better spouse, a better employee....yet this usually entails one painful thing: sacrifice. I have begun to passionately embrace my mortality--because when you do, you will truly understand to the depths of your soul....this is it. You get ONE life. There are no do-overs. It is not enough to aim, you must hit.

Damn those enlightened cookie fiends.....where were you 20 years ago?

Will you please identify yourself?

2009-10-05T07:21:00.000-04:00

Have you ever found yourself staring at yourself in the mirror, dead in the eye, talking to her? That person that should just shut up. It's interesting having a conversation with yourself, a real one--especially when you're angry with her. I mean, we look at ourselves as we fix our hair, apply the eye cream, pluck the strays and grays --but those are really just passing glances evaluating the condition of individual surface fragments. When you stop...and truly make eye-contact....who is that?

Did I really just say that to my sister? Smart off to my husband? Snap at my son for something ridiculous? Who told the completely inappropriate joke at the dinner party? Who barked at the "bag-not" at Kuhns for putting my bread in with the fabric softner? At the waitress that spilled blistering coffee down my arm? Who slipped in the glaring sexual innuendo while talking to her husband at work without realizing she was on speaker phone? Was that the hussy in me? The insecure 14 year-old? The bitchy twenty-something that thinks she knows everything? The impatient director who expects everyone to just try harder? The flaky artist? The spoiled brat? Who the hell is in that mirror? Will you please identify yourself?

It's amazing how direct confrontation--especially of ourselves--is intensely difficult. Stop for a minute. Make eye-contact.

Spa Day

2009-09-29T15:38:00.000-04:00

Had a crappy week. Feel crappy, think crappy, dream crappy. Crappy weather, crappy laundry, crappy service at the grocery store (damn the crappy crooked cart), crappy bills, crappy phone calls, crappy cat crap. (wow, didn't even plan that one) And yes, to top off this mountain of colonic wonder is the fact that I look like crap. No amount of reassuring, primping, hairspraying, viewing myself sideways or sucking in my cheeks is going to change that. The complexion went to hell, my "split ends" have split ends leaving my hair a crispy tuft of frizz, and my nails? I could try out for an extra on a "Thriller" video.

So Alice calls.....and suggests a Spa Day. "A what?" A "SPAAAAA day." A lovely day of scrumptious pampering with lotions, creams, steaming....hmmm...wait...like I have that kind of cash?? Three boys under ten, two birthdays coming up, boyscout fees, school fundraisers, and a youngest child that seems able to wear out a pair of shoes in world-record-breaking time. (did you eat them?) There is no money tree in the yard to pay someone to steam my head! But Alice (dear Alice) says, "no honey, you just stay home, don't answer the phone, and do all the little things you wish you had time to do--manicure, pedicure, facial mask...steam your pores, condition your hair...pamper yourself instead of everyone else!" Cool. I can do that.

Spa Day.

Kiss the kids and hubby goodbye, make an omelet. Egg beaters, green onions, leftover chili and cheese--yum. Coffee with gingerbread creamer--yumm-o. Upstairs to begin. Hmmmm.....ok, steam the face and OW! Little hot there--mental note: check hot water heater temp. Refocus. Apply clay facial mask guaranteed to "clear all pores and make you glow." Lets see....directions say "let dry." So....in the meantime, remove all ancient nail polish and file nails. Apply "cuticle remover." Phone rings. Ignore. Wait--my sister, going through stuff....answer...."hello? yeah.....blah blah" Ow....what the hell? "What is in cuticle remover? ACID?!?!" Ahhhhhhh! Drop phone, mad dash for sink. Trip and smash elbow on door frame. Rinse hands frantically in warm water swearing to send nasty letter to Salley Hansen. Pick up phone. Sister hung up. Try to stick tongue out at phone....realize cannot move mouth. Clay mask has hardened like black top. Back to sink. Rinse....rinse more.....clay in nose hairs--what the--!?!? Ow.

Ok, deep breath. Apply "regenerating eye cream." Ooooh, soothing! Paint nails with clear base coat while eye cream is absorbing. Crack knee into sink while trying to turn on water to rinse burning eye cream out of eyes without messing up nails. Fail. Swear. Dry face and notice that there are distinct red "moons" surrounding your eyes now....skip eye cream. Decide to wait on the nails in order to dampen hair and apply the "root stimulating hair conditioning balm." Slippery shit. Fall half in the tub soaking my t-shirt, and the rug. Shut the cat in the door trying to get a towel. Chase cat half naked down the stairs in front of the glass front double doors praying to GOD that the mailman is NOT out there in order to check the sucker for broken bones. Cat is fine. Swear. Limp back upstairs.

Repaint base coat on nails. Blow. Succeed in beautiful base coat!! Yeah! Climb in shower to rinse hair and shave. Fall on ass due to residual coating of hair "balm" in tub. Swear more. Turn on shower, rinse stupid hair for 20 minutes till it doesn't feel like pond slime. Apply "lavender scented" shaving gel and discover the razor is dull. Hang precariously out of shower, soaking the other rug, digging through crap on shelf for extra razor heads--knock new can of hair mousse to the floor where it explodes--covering a four foot section of the wall in foam....and the cat. Which goes howling down the stairs streaming foam. Don't bother following. Shave, love that lavender! Get out and find fuzzy bathrobe to relax in.

Eyebrows. Outta control and distinctly resembling Conan the barbarian. Tweezers...ow. Careful, careful....just when I'm about to pull--WTF!?! A tail, a damp sticky tail from the cat-a-la-hair-care, whips up under my bathrobe as he's attempting to grab my robe belt....ahhhhh! Crap. Where is the end of my eyebrow? Gone. Pulled 17 hairs instead of 3....um.....whoops. Squint, hmmm....no one will notice, right?

Paint the toes...lovely! Fingernails are a smashing "moonlit evening" and I sit back and....CRACK! The lid of the toilet snaps off and I whack my head into the window frame as I collapse into the space between the fabulous porcelain throne and the wall. Swear a great deal. Attempt to heave myself up with my elbows to save the nails....hair snags on wet polish leaving globs of "moonlight" in freshly "root stimulated" hair. Give up. Sit on floor, wet cat staring at me....and cry. Spa day my chemical burned, bruised, banged-up, goose-egged, eyebrow-missing ass.

The kids are home. "Mom?" "Go away." The husband comes home, hesitantly knocks on the bathroom door. "Honey?" Sniff. Door slowly swings open. He stares. "What, don't I look beautiful after my day at the spa??" He hesitates....."Um......."

Um. Thats the total result of my freakin' SPAAAAA day. Um. So much summed up in two spectacular letters. I'm gonna need a week to recover.

I'm never talking to Alice again.

Mattresses From Heaven

2009-09-09T10:23:00.000-04:00

I just had a gallery opening.

This means that I ate/breathed/slept in/and never quite removed all the paint on me for several weeks no matter how hard I scrubbed. This also means that things were a little....tense in our house. (ahem) For all you non-marrieds, this is code for "I was a total neurotic bee-otch running on caffeine and adrenaline who tested my husband's patience and made nothing but hot dogs for 14 days straight.

Gallery opening....rocked. Sold some. Breathe.....it's all good. And then I crashed. Brain deadness in a delicious way, sleep, leftover wine, sleep more. So two days later and we're having this discussion about things that we've "meant to do" and just haven't gotten around to. Like my kid's bed. The boys were in bunkbeds but now that they have their own rooms--Sawyer has been crashin' on ye ole floor for a few months now. Not that he really cares--when you're ten, "camping" in your own room is cool. But we had the frame--just needed to get out and pick up a mattress--and drop a couple hundred bucks. Yeah, been dying to do that. And after the paintress-from-hell week we'd had.....well, I just wasn't really in the mood.

So I did what every sweet darling woman would--I seduced him. Yes, you read it right. With a little sigh and wiggle and flutter of the eyelashes....oh, and I threw in suggestions of block buster and some rum and ordering wings and garlic bread....mattress? What mattress? Let's hear it for sex, food, and entertainment.

Hop in the caddie and hit the highway and.....slam on the breaks. "Did you see that?" "See what?" Reverse. Miss the mile marker post. "Um.....is that what I think it is??" A mattress. A brand spankin' new, still-in-the-plastic, holy crap on a cracker (to quote my sister) twin mattress! What do we do? I mean, it's not like theres a missing mattress hotline, right? We stood there on the side of the road.....cars wizzing by, blurred faces gawking at us as we hummed and hawed and decided to wait like 10 minutes in case someone came back for it. (then I would have arm wrestled them) And then.....

Two freaks on the road high-fiving, whooping it up like crazy crack addicts as we just about wet ourselves laughing while trying to get this sucker into the trunk. I could fit 3 dead bodies in that caddie's rear end--and with enough jammin and slammin and a very handy bungee cord--we drove our fabulously free find home.

Um......God? Is there a car fairy?

Embrace It

2009-09-02T07:49:00.000-04:00

It's getting colder. Actually, after that week in the "islands mon" it's like freezin'-my-butt-why-in-the-hell-did-we-come-back?? cold. It's only the first week in September and I'm ready to break out the mattress pad warmer and flannel sheets! Crap, I slept with socks on. However, it comes to mind....I wasn't always like this.

There was a time, in a land far away--YEARS ago....when I loved the cold. Kid you not. I raced from the house with my hair flying in the wind, yelling over my shoulder, "COAT?? MOM I DON'T NEED A COAT!!" There could be snow drifting from the heavens and we'd be traipsing about the neighborhood, driving with the windows down, icy flakes melting on my cheeks... Of course, I was like 15....and hard-headed, stubborn, (moi?) and had yet to discover that I was not immortal. (still working on that one) Cold smold, what was the big deal? Run a little faster, dance instead of stand in line, laugh when you feel like you might shiver--cold had no hold over me!! Ahhhh.......and now I sit here bundled in a 3 inch thick sweater and nursing a cup of steaming tea. And I wonder...did my skin get thinner? My nerves more sensitive? I mean I sure as hell am not skinnier! And it comes to me.....is it just that when I was fifteen and stupid--that I embraced it? I relished it! With arms wide open I flung myself into the chilly world, savoring the icy clench my breath made in my chest. And now thoughts of gas bills, head colds, snotty tissues, and frozen pipes leave me.......um, cold?

What else have I forgotten or lost the ability to embrace? Friendship for sure. After 7 years in a marriage that was rather a fraud--not to mention the relationships that went with it that vaporized as soon as the divorce was granted--I no longer assume that everyone is what they seem. I share little....listen alot....and wait. Headlong plunges into friendship are a thing of the past. (my husband has actually found me in the coat closet at church pretending to read the bulletin during "meet and greet time") Remember when you first saw the new girl at the bus stop? Buckteeth, zit on the chin, wrinkled denim jacket with "friendship pins" on your shoes--the two of you were inseparable by the time the bus arrived at school! Oh, to be able to trust like that again.

Then again--perhaps I have just exchanged "embracing abilities." When I think of my freakazoid 15 year-old self with the bad perm and ocean blue eyeshadow--I also remember hating all food that wasn't served on a bun. I had serious issues with my parents "mus-aaack" (gag, choke), and I only wanted Niki's. Now? I adore food--and the stranger more authentic it is--the better. Bring on the sushi, roasted goat, polish, russian, greek, pad my thai baby! Music? Everything goes. I love jazz and blues, will rock my ass off to anything from tool to garbage, yet have the classical station tuned in on the shower radio and can sing more dolly and alabama than I will ever admit in person. And fashion? I know what I like. I hate labels....and if it looks good--buy it. (and if you can find it at the good will--you can buy MORE of it!) lol

Funny how we change. I still hate the cold. I'm making soup tonight. And buying whiskey. I think I will also try harder to make new friends. Seriously, if I will embrace a plate of stewed pig with figs and funky cheese...I can say hi to the bizarre lady at church who wears bird pins and has pink hair.

Vacation is....

2009-08-25T19:28:00.000-04:00

Lets see....according to dictionary.com, vacation is: a period of suspension of work, study, or other activity, usually used for rest, recreation, or travel; recess or holiday. According to the media: "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas." (anyone who has discovered a glittery glass bauble on their left hand while trying to find the advil under the mountain of tequila bottles has found this is not necessarily the case) According to one of my neighbors it's "free baby-sitting when the whole fam-damily gets together!" (there would be bloody hair-pulling over that one)

Are we running away from our lives? Living out repressed urges? Resting? Recharging? Or merely finding an excuse to take pictures of the kids other than Christmas morning or Easter dinner...

And so I set out for the first real vacation my new husband and I have ever had together. It's been....well, waaaay too long since I left home without turkey stuffing recipes, bottles of brandy stashed to spike my egg nog, protein bars to supplement frightening "casserole" meals and a trunk full of gifts. (i.e. going to your sisters/parents/in-laws for holidays does NOT count as vacation. An exercise in sneaking sex at naptime or in the bathroom while hollering "hang on grandma--just brushing my hair!", dealing with constipated children, or contemplating the benefits of powdered prozac you could carry around in splenda packets for emergencies--yes, these are holidays, but not vacations)

Seven lovely sun-drenched days in St. Croix....

Vacation is....

An excuse to not wear a bra at all. Though this will not come as a surprise to those of you that know me, it did seem to come as a complete shock to every gawking male and judgemental female I sat with, walked by, or accidentally flashed in the airports we traveled through. Six flights of boobilicious fun.

A reason to buy multiple bottles of $6 rum that line the grocery store isles next to the tp and cornflakes...Y.U.M.

Cooking with one knife, two spoons, and no potato peeler.

Arguing over the absolute STUPIDEST of things.....the stress of traveling with 3 boys under 10 on six flights when someone always has to "go"....or sand in the bed, wet towels, "where is my camera?!", "I have to eat THAT?" failing deodorant, peeing in the bushes, and "WHO DRANK ALL THE RUM!?!"

Playing cards till 2am all the while marveling at how your sweet dear mum has transformed into cutthroat Sammy-the-bull before your very eyes---she's even squinting at you!

An outside shower that has a very large toad living under the slat floor.

Spiny lobster. Bowls of melted butter, rare steak and single malt. (does it get any better?)

Sitting for four HOURS next to a woman who swears that the 6 month old baby in her LAP usually "sleeps like a darling" on all flights.....but ours.

Picking avocados off the tree and making guacamole for every meal. Yes, guacamole for breakfast rocks.

Baby hermit crabs the size of your pinky nail that skitter across the floor while your children peal with laughter.

Having a panic attack when your darling friend back home calls to tell you that she can't get the spare key to work to get into your house to feed your cats.....your two semi-psychotic, completely neurotic, outside felines that are trapped inside most likely WWF wrestling and eating the carpet like they did last time the boys forgot to feed them.

Tree frogs that sing when it rains.

Rediscovering the thrill of sneaking smooches behind kitchen cabinets and trees cause you and your babe haven't been alone in like FOUR DAYS.

Seriously considering.....even pondering....living in a treehouse. If it meant you could stay.

Perhaps I will never tear it up in vegas, never "ooh la la" it in a Parisian cafe, never run away and pretend to be someone else for a weekend.....but I do know the soul piercing joy of watching my children play in the surf, giggling while my 10 year old holds onto the biting gecko to prove he's tough, the wonder of mangoes we picked from the tree on my ice-cream, and the simple joy of not thinking about the bills, the schedules, e-mail or the neighbors.

I mean, who cares if they see me naked?

Omelettes

2009-08-12T11:48:00.000-04:00

This morning I had an omelet for breakfast. Nothing particularly amazing about that, I do most mornings as I completely lost my taste for sweet things with my second pregnancy. (yeah, doc--explain that one to me! lol) But this morning's creation consisted of half a serving of some seriously spicy jambalaya--shrimp and hot sausage included. Diced onions and red peppers, crushed garlic.....all tossed into that sizzling pan and then doused with scrambled eggs, sprinkled with adobo, and don't forget the cheese.....yum. (hungry yet?) Two day old dinner suddenly morphs into delish breakfast with what??--the magic of scrambled eggs. Truly, is there anything you can think of eating for dinner that doesn't make a killer omelet? I've had taco omelettes, roasted lamb with rosemary potato omelettes, thanksgiving turkey and stuffing, seafood alfredo (even tore up the cheddar biscuits and tossed 'em in--thank you red lobster) and can anyone pass up a chili omelet covered in shredded cheese and topped with green onions? Way beyond Denny's "ham and cheese" or your average "western" creation--there is an endless world of possibilities! Omelettes let you take the bits, the pieces and leftovers as well as the gourmet choices (I still will do personal favors of a questionable nature for a goat cheese and caramelized onion slice of heaven...) and create scrumptious joy.

So what's your scrambled egg? For some it's their children--anything goes better with giggles, right? One of my dearest friends cannot live without her camera--it takes the mundane and makes enthralling documentaries of her life. I think my sister has an umbilical cord to her phone; our old neighbor doesn't do a thing without beer, seriously! For me, it's my husband. I can take the gourmet moments of very intentional life--vacations, candle-lit dinners in the back yard, football games, concerts and parties--and without him they would be tasteless. But I can also search through the leftovers and chopped onions in the back of the fridge--cold pizza on the living room floor watching re-runs, nights the power goes out and we play scrabble with flashlights. Winter mornings when I'm just too cranky to get out of bed--even those indie films you rent 'cause they look cool--and they turn out horrible? I can take them all and add him.....and voila, superlative pleasure.

So here's to scrambled eggs. May you find yours.....

Damage Control

2009-08-11T15:25:00.000-04:00

You know.....I daresay that five days of child-free gallivanting about Pittsburgh is costly. Yes, I packed the boys, teddy bears in tow--and kissed the darlings good-bye as my ex husband growled at me. (his usual capacity of social interaction) They drove off down the street--little white palms frantically waving through the rear window.....(sniff) Ah yes, the bitter sweetness of "YEAH--GLASS OF WINE AT 3:30 IN THE AFTERNOON WITH A GOOD BOOK ON THE PORCH!!" What--who me? Thrilled to be able to eat saltines, cheese and fresh basil for dinner? (my husband was working late) A quarter of the dishes, no smelly socks in the living room--hell, I could get up and wander NUDE down the hall to the bathroom in the middle of the night! Glorious vacation in my own home!

And then.....the return. Five days of being the absolute center of attention. 120 hours of "what do you WANT to eat sweetie?" instead of, "here's dinner....take it or leave it." Amusement parks, late nights, tractor rides, movies--a civil war reenactment!! What DIDN'T they do at gramma's house? Did I mention the "blueberry popover pancakes with chocolate sprinkles" yet? (I heard all about them while I was toasting ye ole Eggo waffles this morning...) The whining...the complaining..."we have to go to Walmart with you--awwww, man!!" The topper was when my eldest actually said, TO MY FACE, "whatever mom." The gasket was officially blown. Poof. There she was, the crazy redheaded woman in the hair care isle lecturing her 10 yr-old about respect and kindness and this is NOT how you treat your mother and......and......

Yeah.....stellar moment there. (I knew I had crossed some kind of line when the pale mouse of a woman at the end of the isle took her little girl's hand and whispered loudly, "honey we'll come back and get you some new shampoo later..." glancing at me like I might assault them as she snuck out past the pantene)

My mother used to tell me the times my half-sister went to see her other mom were hell afterwards. She actually said Terri would be rotten till she spanked her--and then it was all back to normal. (sigh)

Do I dare? "Hi guys, I missed you---bend over?" Umm......it's tempting.

Sunday Morning with NPR

2009-08-10T10:47:00.000-04:00

Now if you'd like to fill your mind with enough disturbing information that you may very well become distracted in the oddest of moments--begin your day with National Public Radio. (I'm scrambling eggs thinking, "can you really put solar panels on your lawn mower?") I'm addicted, completely. One of my greatest pet peeves with people is how small their vision is. I believe strongly that the wider the lens, the higher chance you have of not only understanding the world--but appreciating your small place in it. At this very moment there are over a million people in China that have had their entire world swept away in a storm....right now, this instant there is a woman over there sobbing, trying to even comprehend what has happened....what will she do...where will she sleep? How will she feed her children? And here I sit in my lovely dining room, the smell of ripe peaches drifting from the bowl on the table...do I make a cobbler? Shall I pack 2 or 3 dresses for vacation? I must force myself to really look at the world--to see the sadness, pain, hunger....for it is the very slap in the face I need to stop the entitled barrage of complaints that pop into my head. It's too hot--not enough money for a new tv--the neighbor's ridiculous dog and his issues.....they all suddenly seem quite pale.

One particular story on Sunday morning has lingered in my mind. They were discussing how they were changing the law to include violence against homeless people as a hate crime. (and please--this is my muddled memory of the article, look it up for the absolutes) Did you know that the definition of a "hate crime" is violence not motivated by personal gain or angry exchange? In other words, it is a crime done for "sport" or out of "personal belief." So as I'm digesting this, they start throwing out the numbers for how many homeless people are murdered every year.....and then they talk about the murderers. Nearly 50% of all homeless violence and murder is committed by children under the age of 19. 73% total by people under the age of 25.

I had to sit down. Literally. Hundreds of people....brutally murdered...for no gain, and for no wrong done. By our youth! What has become of us? I have my own beliefs about family and politics and such--hours of good-hearted debate with friends over burgers and beer.....but there are moments when there is this sickening thud in my soul. When you realize that the arguments and explanations and rationalizations are all rather useless against the facts. There is something wrong with our world.

My boys have been gone for 5 days--I will pick them up tonight. (cannot WAIT!) The house has seemed so empty and the cats have followed me around like friendless puppies. But I find myself motivated even more to face parenthood with passion. There is no wishy washy ground to be had here unless you want to fall on your ass! (lol) There is a right and a wrong. There are kindness and hate in this world.....and every day, every moment is a choice. Parenthood is exhausting, overwhelming, and utterly amazing. In it I face my own demons, see my own bad habits, and strive to open my children's eyes to the ugliness in the world--while empowering them to NOT be part of it.

Take a deep breath; we are incredibly blessed...but we are also responsible.

Caramel

2009-08-09T04:45:00.000-04:00

I can think of 14 different uses for caramel......not all of them involve the kitchen.

Simplicity

2009-08-06T10:02:00.000-04:00

I adore food. Taste, texture, color, aroma....I could spend hours watching cooking shows, I have to be drug from the cookbooks at Borders, I have actually traded clothing in Guatemala for a taco. If I ever won a million dollars I just might spend most of it traveling the world consuming cultural deliciousness. Yet, in the midst of the most gourmet meal, lists of ingredients 40 items long, steaming, boiling, chopping....6 hour prep, 4 hour roast, freeze, whip, drizzle......absolute perfection is a sizzling hot steak, a slab of crusty bread, and a salad dripping with blue cheese. Four things (five if you count the butter I'm mentally slathering on that bread...) and utter satisfaction.

I love sushi, drench me in pumpkin bisque, stuff a lobster with shrimp and crab and I may weep for joy; but in the midst of our "forty ingredient" lives, I am working harder to stop and.....well, just stop. The smell of lemons. Hot buttered toast. Counting fire flies with my sons....watching my husband laugh. Life is as complicated as we make it. Eat well.