Cousins

I realize how much I love having a large extended family. I went to visit my mother’s cousin over the weekend. I’m not sure what level cousin he is to me, but he and his wife gave us a wonderful time, of amazing food, stories and Catholic Mass. The connection was tangible; though years, miles, and experiences separated us, the relationship of shared blood was immediate. I love that I know my thirty cousins and my cousin’s children. We share each other’s accomplishments and joy. We also are there when grief and sadness enter and we bring food and our presence for we have known each other a lifetime. Their sadness is ours.

Be nice

Almost everyday when I arrive at work I am greeted by a smiling young man. He opens the door for me without asking and tells me how nice I look that morning. No matter what has preoccupied my brain, I stop and thank him. I feel lighter and brighter and yes, I do feel I must look at least presentable, if he says it’s so. I wish more people were like this willing to be generous without expectation, without invitation.
Perhaps that is why, I don’t understand why people become so annoyed with those we come in contact with daily. How or why can they make it so personal? They forgot you asked for dressing on the side, where is my third cup of coffee? I asked for it after my meal. I want it now! They won’t be happy with their tip. That cashier is being slow on purpose. I really hate it when I get those foreign people on the phone when I need help with my cable. They keep adding fee after fee at my bank. I asked that guy and he was rude and I told him where he could take his bank....

Step back: It is a job for them, a job that probably used to be done by three people for more money and with benefits. They are not on a personal mission to ruin your day. They were less than friendly, forgetful, maybe they were up the night before with with a sick child, aging parent,on a huge drunk, who knows? You don’t know any more about them, than they know about you. Maybe they think you are a jerk because you are staring in space not answering their friendly chit chat. They are not telepathic no insight into your life.

Relatives are far crueler saying whatever they feel under the guise, you are always family. It is acceptable to dismiss politeness, tact and anything resembling how you would treat a coworker or casual friend. The closer the relative the more callous the words. They cut deep and often and you learn to make armor. Some people are very good at making armor. This is unfortunate. The words will then cling to shields like magnets.

Be nice like Michael, even when he and I know it’s not always true, that I don’t look nice at all.

We all need this for someone to tell us they see us.

They are glad we here today.

Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum

Mary, my cousin, and I used to do the tummy bump. We would hold hands, colliding our bellies, braids flying, squealing laughter through the summer air. We picked big voluptuous mulberries sweet and dark. We ate until our tongues were as purple as our hands. An interruption in our sated gluttony, a rarely seen uncle intruded on our revelry to dissect a mulberry, to expose the bright green worms that we had eaten.

Oh, the cruelties of life shown upon us. Satisfaction can be snatched in an instant, hidden under the good, doubt, nothing is as it seems. We of course did not think that. We screamed and made a large pitcher of Lime Kool-Aid, to counteract the bright green aliens, nestled in our abdomens, to banish them out. We rested our swollen bellies under the weeping willow tree.

It would be many years before I would eat a mulberry.

The Undertoad,Little Big Man, and ice flows

What to say
what to do
Run in circles
Make a stew

I remember taking Johnny for walks in the last days of summer. The Queen Anne's Lace proudly flanking each side of our royal procession, we never realize that this is life at its most purest joy and contentment.

What to say
what to do
fall down baby
have a brew

Suzanne Somers, Wizards, and Birthdays

I don't know if the line you are much more of an idiot this year than last year will change what I decide or that I have forgotten how to mentally do math in my head or to spell or to answer all the entertainment trivia I could spew out at a moment's notice. Have I researched it all to find that it comes back to something more scary, more sinister, more lethal. I have not been able to broach that subject yet, too tired, too weary,but perhaps I should before my options close. Alzheimer's, dementia, horrible, horrible names for diseases that take away all that makes you a person of some worth to the world, to your family.
Tomorrow is my birthday, a good day for resolutions. I am tired of this sniveling, complaining, egocentric contemplations of maladies, real or imaginary, done, done, done.
It will be a year soon that I have begun my mediocre odyssey of medications, specialists, wizardry, tests, more medications, to find myself. The scarecrow a chemically numb, definitely dumb, fifty-three year old, who has lost her heart, her brain, her home...

The Undertoad

I almost dare not write about it, but I feel it. It follows me stepping on the heels of my shoes as I walk on the wet leaves. I smell it's moldy breath moving my hair off my neck and making the flesh rise in goose bumps on my arms. I hear it's mocking laugh each time the phone rings. It is a battle we have. Each day, I to see the light and run faster than the Undertoad. Each day to listen to the music of a thousand different sounds to drown out the screaming of the Undertoad.
I fear this is a mistake, to be naked without a prescription bottle near. I will stand strong with my shield of motherhood impaled on my chest.

Walking Singing Smiling in the Rain

There is no time machine, to go back,to fix, to change, to give us one more chance to redeem ourselves, to apologize, to say thank you, to help someone we knew we should have, to close our mouth quicker, before that last bitter word fell, to hug tightly, to breathe in the smell of those we've lost for far too long.

So we must for now hug, those we have here tightly and loosely in the same grasp. Trap those cruel words in cages behind our tongues. Say thank you in each word we utter, each look we give, each wave of kindness. Let the sorrow fall away from us before we talk to those here with us. We must not become so firmly trapped in the debts of others that they consume our own dreams. Remember having a dream. It is so brief a time on this sweet earth.

Today

Today is an elderberry pie baking in the oven. Today is no cancer for my dear friend and her mother can breathe again. Today is the sun shining on the sunflowers while the yellow finches sing amongst the fuzzy bees. Today my diet coke was cold and frosty down my throat and made me say " that's good" and I thought of my dad. Today the dog hair nests make me shrug. Tomorrow they will still be there.

Stay awake

It has been a long and dizzingly emotional summer, if I knew what snorting cocaine or other narcotics up my nose felt like I am sure that is what I am feeling and I don't find it pleasant just irritating and my face droops and contorts like I am trying to look out the eyepiece of those cylindrical things with the colors a kaleidoscope. Maybe I will imagine that the hundred times a day my crazy right side decides to declare mutiny and twist and turn and make me cry. That is the worst because then I think of my mother and I miss her the most because I can't tell anyone anymore because it isn't real, it isn't interesting. Your mother did not talk about her polio, and I know this is true, but I also know she had two years of people to explain it to her and help her understand the hell her body was creating. Yes, I am a whining freaking disaster, but I am so tired. These episodes are coming minutes apart not the accepted kind where I flail and froth, the hidden kind I blankly stare, my face goes numb, my nose feels as I've snorted my sister's stash way too fast, way too much, my eyelid hangs heavy can't hold it open, mouth starts to droop all on the right side, teeth clench, neck falls, arm weakens and I talk soft or slurry mix things up sorry didn't respond I guess I was listening. I'll just take exorbitant amounts of narcoleptic aids stay awake stay awake stay awake

Doctor says maybe I should consider the damaged part of my brain being removed. I was horrified. It is a part of me as much as my ugly feet, directional disability, and love of cats. He is trying a different drug therapy and I will have to actually adhere to a sleeping and eating schedule, work helps with that. I guess I'm ok not understanding and I can move on now. I will keep my temperol lobe intact with me along with my uterus. We have become friends on this journey I would miss the red birds.

The Book

The ideas keep coming fast and furious like a racing train. I can barely keep up and there is so much going on around me.There is no time to sit and write papers, everywhere scribbled with ideas as they are hurled out my brain like projectile vomit. This must be it, the book I am to write even if it sits, bound in staples and dust on a shelf in my bedroom. I will have accomplished one of those dreams, those desires that lay asleep in your heart weaving cobwebs in and out until it is still...

shouting back the crazies

Going away is as wonderful as you make it even amongst the lost luggage, delayed flights, and crazy drunk meth heads on a Seattle bus determined to place their erect manhood on anyone; soldier, Alaska's Fish and wildlife higher up, or skate boarding teenager they could find to rub up against and putrefy. I mention this scene because it was in stark contrast to the rest of the trip it was, but a blip of time, and it could have sullied it all.Getting past the bleeping blip and embracing the experience the mountains as your backdrop, freedom in the air is easier.
Blip sometimes are more intense, like full out bleeping ; you lose your job, accident not going home today, no more love divorce, I'm sorry she didn't make it.

It becomes all about getting past that one horrible blip in time that changed everything. It is walking on the crack in the sidewalk, breathing past the cemetery, and closing your eyes tight and smiling toward the sky grateful for all the seconds before the blip and then opening them wide into the air and being grateful for all the seconds of remembering.

For Stimpy

She had been with me seventeen years. She laid by me as I wept through the deaths of my parents her paw softly touching my arm. She was there when I paced the floors night after night, waiting, waiting for the phone to ring, hoping for it not to ring.
She would greet me everyday yelling to refresh her food and water. She would run to lick the water off my legs or anyone else after they showered . She loved the Christmas tree and laying under it. Even after the dogs no longer let the cats downstairs, she knew when they were outside and would lay under the tree, drink their water and sit on their beds.
She was friendly and came to every OM and Cub Scout meeting and would find the person who cared for cats the least and jump in their lap. We would find her in the sink or on the cool tile of the bathroom floor. She spent more time sleeping as the enemy of time drew her close.
I miss seeing her. I think I still see her black fluffy tail, a dark blur around a corner. I know she no longer had a fluffy coat, and but one good eye, but she was as wonderful and noble a cat as could be, my dear, dear, Stimpy

sleep ship

I went to bed at 5"o'clock Tired to the bone I think the saying goes. So tired I could not talk, or think, but I could eat and then I fell asleep again. I awoke with the same aching bones oh well they must me tired deep inside and need more than just the physicality of sleep. The tired of soul and spirit, that consumes the bone and muscles and takes the brain's ability to feel lightness away. I know I must make the choice to be in the sun. I must make the choice to leave the worry to it's own solitary bleakness and move on, but it is hard when you are anchored into the port like the mother of all flagships, because you are the mother.
"A ship in a port is safe, but that is not what a ship is built for"
When I was little I never wanted to sleep and I was read this story about a bed that ran away because it was sad. The bed had many adventures as it flew away. The child missed it's bed. The bed grew tired also. Maybe there is always hope that child will grow weary and understand it is not bad to sleep, perchance to dream.

Sometimes you are just lucky

Sometimes you are just lucky you don't get the flu or you weren't born in a country where girls cover their heads and brains. Sometimes you are just lucky the milk in the fridge isn't sour, the cat hasn't peed in your shoe, no one beat you and stomped you in the head . Sometimes you're just lucky that you're only laid off for a month, that the van missed the house, that the guy just stole the laptop and didn't shoot you in the chest. Sometimes you're just lucky that you just have a sinus infection, or a spider bite, or you weren't devoured by the the mrsa beast. Sometimes you just get lucky you inherited the thin hair, myopic eyes, but have no propensity to pick up a drink of liqueur and keep picking them up until there is no walking, talking or consciousness.
Sometimes you're just lucky you don't carry these appendages these fungus' that are lodged deep within the soul. There should be no glory in flaunting superiority of sobriety and sanity, but by the grace of God, by the minisculity of a cell, by a bit a luck goes I.

Marissa

She is the youngest sister the third to complete our M and M club. She is also the bravest and fiercest. She walked at nine months old. I don't think I had mastered the holding up of my head for extended periods yet that age. She hated clothes and because of this her body grew this downy fur all over her back at least that is what we theorized. She was impossible to watch. It was my job to watch her. I did not like to move much I liked television and books and operating on ants and attempting to save them with the inside of portulaca leaves. She liked to run crazy-like everywhere and dance in circles for hours with her arms outstretched and she never fell over or walked like a drunk. She did not like clothes and would strip faster than the barnyard cats I would dress, truly impressive.
The best or worst event, dependent on if you were the mother, was my middle sister's first communion. It was a very solemn sacrament, a very long crowded, pompous Mrs. Chechenese is going to whack me in the ears if I talk during it event. My parents sat closer to the front I had Marissa in one of he back pews,usually the most sought after holy grail catholic seats, except on filming for posterity days where girls sat primly like vessels practicing for that greatest position in a Catholic's woman's life marriage and motherhood in pre-bridal dresses while restless twitchy boys with slicked back hair and ties sat on their hands. Marissa made it through the gospel, but not the homily when the priest drones on about whatever he has chosen to hear his voice. The homily was when I became frozen and dreamed about my real family my alien royal family and that is when Mrs. Chechennese snapped me on the head to look at my half-naked sister. She was down to her slip her dress, shoes, socks all in a puddle by her feet and the slip was over her head. I grabbed her in mid-run She was heading down the aisle toward my mom. This would not end well. She kept going for the slip. I could feel the heat and hives starting to form and my ears were roaring instead of the horrified snickering of the awakening flock I could hear Father Bielskas clearing his throat like a rumble of thunder and then I caught her. I clapped my large hand over her mouth and dragged her as fast as I could out the door. As the heavy door closed I let her down. She tore that petticoat off and let out a scream of freedom.

Epilogue: Marissa called last night someone stole her 2002 Saturn while she was with a client. The client was worried that she had to call the police. How do we explain how we know each other? The police doesn't care. She cries for the police and can't believe someone has stolen such a car. Her dead mother and brother helped her buy this car. "Please find my car" she wails.
The client said his mom could give her a ride when she came back with the dog. His mom had to take the dog away while Marissa was providing or she might get bit in the face. The client is disabled. She said," No thanks I will take a taxi". The taxi didn't believe she really wanted a taxi that far and asked if she really had the money.
She said, "Why does it cost more than $300.00?".
"No, I've just been burned It cost eighty"
She gives him a hundred She knows the service industry.
She sounds resigned "you know what this means"
"yeah I know". She has to do some specials, but she doesn't say it like that. She tells me exactly what it is and goes into a diatribe about men and we laugh. She says better go work and such says she loves and misses me. I love and miss her too.

Spinners and lights

I woke up and the nail was spinning, spinning, spinning against the broken plaster with the green poinsettia wallpaper. It was one of those days. The can't hold my head up, walk a straight line days. It would progress to violent puking and then the lights. I would like to explain that I could make the rooms brighter and the light bulbs bigger, but my mother would respond,fine then do it. It would save money, I guess she couldn't see it. I decided then I was special maybe a vessel of God and sainthood was to be mine. So I would watch Our Lady Of Fatima and the children upon seeing Mary knew they needed to suffer They wore rough corded belts around their waists that cut into their skin and bled. I tried that with a rope from a pickle sack.It itched mostly I broke out in hives that spread to my face and my mother asked, if I had been back the barn, because something back the barn usually provoked these hives. She told me to take a bath in baking soda. I did and also decided the belt was not painful just scratchy and I made a piss poor martyr.
I went on to another favorite saint movie Bernadette, well I would make a grotto like she saw Mary in Lourdes and the sun twirled. The sun was always shifting for me between light and bright and blasts of nova like extravaganzas, but still no Mary. My grotto did not get very far I tried recruiting my sister a much harder worker by telling her it would be like the house in Thomasina where the witch lady lived who helped all the animals. We would haul rocks from the field gather muck from the swamp to make a paste to stick the rocks together clearly our engineering skills were nonexistent. Of course this project did not last long. Melissa, the third girl, had to be taken care of. She was not going to make walls. Trouble, is what she'd be doing, heading toward the mucky swamp.
My religiosity continued. I would hold mock church amongst my dolls and stuffed animals flattening white Butternut bread into facsimile of hosts and offering up to Old Blue my teddy Bear and Mary Ellen the half bald doll, and Melissa if she promised to not put it in her pants . That was usually my job make sure she doesn't put dangerous things in her underpants like scissors or glass. She carried things in her panties like a purse.
I kept looking for Mary everywhere. She must be somewhere in those bright lights, but I didn't wear the rope more than eleven hours and that stone wall pretty pathetic, guess I was not as deserving as those children in Mexico or the girl in France who endured bone cancer with no mention of pain. So with regret in my heart, no more lunches spent praying at the foot of the statue of St. Theresa to make the roses bloom in winter, no more reading The Lives of the Saints from the library, no more dreaming of casting my body to the lions and saying I do believe.
I must go on to my next hypothesis... aliens

Def Leopard and Ritalin

I make discoveries everyday, archaeological finds, digs in the recesses of the dirt infested caves of my dwelling, some of them like a faded holey shirt a homage to a semi-defunct band. I hold it tightly to my heart and breathe in the essence of sunlight. It is glorious and I smile and cry and know she has led me to this treasure because I need a treasure now. Others like the pills that I find squirreled in bags and drawers remind me why I hide them and I should quit, but I won't and I can't.

Medication continues to be an annoying irony of these phantom neurological paradoxes. Ritalin, magical pill,directing my brain to stay awake, to try to focus, to supplement the other pills when they can't keep me awake. I like these pills, but the ones to apparently slow my brainwaves down are not as pleasant an incendiary crusade battling with the others.
Enough of this poppycock. The sun is shining. I have sparkles on my shirt and my pants, yes my pants. I have started embroidering again a farm picture I began in 1983. I may watch Thomasina yet. Onward there are roads to be run, flowers to be planted, fun to be had...

Silent

So this is what is what I think, medication, meditation, mediation. You just keep trying You just keep trying so hard until you are quiet and you learn not to ask, not to be noticed, and no one likes that either except the dogs and the cats and they are never quiet. The dogs and cats are always kind and don't care if you ask them how they are ten times in an hour or if you talk to you yourself or you fall down or walk funny. They don't care if you cry into their fur and they wait patiently for you to stop weeping, licking your tears. They like you sick or well, sad or happy. They are much more humane than people.

moving on and light showers

So this is how it is to be in charge of one's own destiny to move ahead and not look behind with futile regrets oh good grief that's so a pile of manure. I'm impressed if I can make it past one conversation not dissecting my words and attaching hidden meanings to the hidden meanings. My narcissism is as thick as gluey as the others. I just hide it within the cape of distrust. I am so tired I want to have time to look at pictures and cry and cry and laugh and grieve and no one say anything about what I need and I know I don't need that.

I had a most interesting seizure I guess. It was like fireworks. It started as a static snowstorm like the tv picture that the girl saw in Poltergeist and then it became bigger and changed to gold and light and bright and then it stopped... I wish it hadn't stopped.

I'm a hostile Orphan

My touchstone, my hero, my one person in life who always loved, supported, cheered thought everything I did, wore, made,was wonderful and beautiful. The one who didn't yell, call me stupid, obsessive, crazy, crazy, crazy is gone. My mom is dead. She was the one person that took care of me, who loved me no matter what I said or did. She loved me and would always love me. I miss her and it hurts terrible and to quote Forrest Gump "That is all I have to say about that".

The sun was shining

I had a most wondrous time with my aunt and cousin walking and running, just a tad my aunt at 76 surpassed us. How impressive and she just got on facebook. My mom was screaming at home when I was watching birds and blue skies and my aunt spotting sparkly cans in the ditch.
I have come to know that the most unbearable pain in life is that which you can not take away from those you love I just keep hearin the sound of my dad yelling and screaming, and my mom crying, and I just keep talking and talking to them telling them to go away in there head just leave, go... somewhere...anywhere where it safe and kind and quiet. I realize I am going there as they are screaming because I am very good at leaving.

I am not good at confrontation and many things have turned into maelstrom of excrement because of this.

You know you're on your way you know you are

It is a journey and in my intensified state of mangled brain waves, a maze of enlightenment. I do not have to spend time saying, doing, being, anything I don't want to. I can leave a movie fifteen minutes into it. I can eat an entire bag of Reeses and I don't care if the cat eats off my plate. I am tired of taking care of people and I don't want any people taking care of me unless they are paid to do so. It is messy and exhausting taking care of people, especially ones with my gene pool. I realize that my oldest brother was shackled with much of the care of the second through fifth child. The paternal figure was busy drinking and working. The maternal figure was busy birthin more babies, just another incongruity to the depressive household. So this is my tribute, my thank you, and my apology to him, the eldest.
He walked the floor with me when I was sick again and again. and put me in ice cube baths when my fever possessed me. He helped me with homework that escaped me, no explanations for geometrical figures or abstract boxes were enough. I was still sent to the office with the lowest scores on abstract reasoning they had ever seen. He took me to movies, plays, and to restaurants and explained the mysterious workings of a menu of how to act in public. He thought I was funny and bright and read my letters to his friends at college. He subscribed to Mother Earth, rode a bicycle and ate brown rice and organic foods. long before they were Hollywood popular. He was political and I was obsessed with his knowledge. He went to Washington to protest the war. He worked on McCarthy's campaign and I cried when he lost because I had come to understand what it meant through his eyes.

He tried so hard to help me be normal. I was terrorized in gym class called Denny McClain and always walking in front of balls. I just could not figure it out. He tried to help me drive. I ran over a turtle. It was devastating, but I just did not know what to do. I still can not back up. I sit in the car for an hour trying to understand which way to turn the wheel then I mess up and ask my neighbor to back it out. Driving it seems was perhaps not meant to be and crying for the examiner and promising you would not drive alone, that you just need identification for your Navy husband, well, that is how you learn to get by, same with gym class compliment the teacher, obey the rules, and hope and pray there is one kid worse than you. He took me to colleges visits, plays, movies, gave me books to read and showed me that there was a life beyond.
It was a retched spot the oldest, but he handled it with class and courage and gave us the best possible example to follow. He went to the most prestigious college in the state ( sorry about that one, he tried). He earned his masters there as well. He has been very successful in all aspects of life and he richly deserves them. I just wanted to thank him. I am honored that he is my brother.

Vision, Hallucination, Crazy Sight?

Since I have ignored these bizarre brain - vision - disconnections for the past four or five years remembering and writing them down now as they occur is entertaining, at least to me. This is my most recent. I was walking in the rain this morning when I spotted a bright red and yellow soccer ball, baby size deciding to let it go I was mesmerized by the face of Mikael Gorbachev on front of the ball.It had me I was intrigued and knew I must take this with me. Christian and Julia would find it funny, but when I went to pick it up I realized oh, it's a McDonald's french fry box but NO it's not as my brain worked extra boringly hard and said it is a crumpled coke can and I didn't pick it up even for the earth or the deposit. I was so disappointed no Gorbachev.

This time I'm gonna make it on my own

No time to lament the issue I'm just walking away. It is a waste of life to continue on my self inflicted torture of family so I must be leavin. I'm sure there will be missteps along the way, but I feel at peace.
I was so excited to see Trilly Lily this morning she ran up to me and before she remembered that she was feral I petted her. It is becoming a daily occurrence and I love her so. It was near fifty degrees outside today and it is difficult to control the euphoria of not feeling cold and being buried in layers of clothes. I am even looking forward to cleaning the minefield that is my backyard. The epiphany of spring, rebirth, reborn, awaken, no mere words can express the feeling of warmth on naked skin,unfrozen earth, brown and delightfully squishy. My hallucinatory guides, birds of flight in full regalia anticipating the mating season, it's a wonderful world.

There's a whirling dervish in my head

My brain is on a tilt a whirl and I'm not sure if I want to get off or stay on. School has always been my safety net, a retreat from the messy complexities of family. I don't know why I can't disentangle myself from their dependency, manipulations, and narcissistic sociopathy. Why I am compelled to listen to the loud cacophony of nonsensical self loathing of ego on a Naploeonic scale. I just want to hide to escape the barrage of lies thrown at me like unaimed gunshots, seeing which one I will believe. Buried beneath it all is the truth.

Fate or Bad Decision

The ninth graders I worked with were assigned a paper each year about Romeo and Juliet Was it fate or bad decisions that caused their untimely death? I had always assumed that it was bad choices, young marriage, dramatic suicides, impulsive behavior. I had never even considered the other side. They had no choice in being Montague or Capulet. It was not in their control that the messenger would be quarantined and Romeo would never know the plan of his Juliet.

We don't choose or are allowed to give our opinion on what family we are born into. Geographically and economically we are cemented into the arms of our kinfolk. Genetically, oh the curses of fate determines our height, hair, general intelligence and predisposition to many forms of addictions and medical maladies. I must rethink my fate/ choices theory and then it comes to me not unlike a sign from the good Lord himself.
We all have a choice in how we react to these angels or demons of fate. That we have knowledge however small gives us the simple odds of the gambler. Do we drink if our father is a raging alcoholic? Do we eat mass quantities of salt and cake when heart disease hangs from the family tree. Do we ignore the crazies in our head when we have had crazies in our house. So I return to the question of fate and choice and they are symbiotic, not existing without the other. Was it fate you met your spouse or your choice to pick up that Mocha latte? Is there a grand plan for our lives, or is it all mixed up in DNA and half thought out decisions? Doesn't matter much on how you get there. It's what you do once you get out of the car.

Windy and skipping

I heard that song Windy today on the radio and I was transported back to eighth grade when I was chosen to be Windy in our catholic school Spring Musical Review. I had never been chosen for the lead or even a back up snow flake for that matter. I immediately ordered a red and white polka dot jumper and a white floppy straw hat and had dreams of throwing it in the air like Mary Tyler Moore.
I apparently had forgotten I can not dance at least not dance in any familiar form. Mrs. Dolick the music teacher worked very hard to coordinate the motions to the words. I was adequate until the line Who's tripping down the streets of the city, smiling at everybody she sees . She interpeted tripping as skipping and I know I could have tripped just fine ,but I could not skip. I could not comprehend her directions on the complex task of feet and music My long ago childhood friend Sue Betts spent recess after recess working with me to properly skip. I don't remember if I ever thanked her. She left the world long ago , cancer. Thank you Sue I still remember how to skip and someday when we meet again we can do the whole routine, but I'll take back up this time.

Sometimes it's ice cream sometimes it's not

I have no idea why I wrote that title, but somewhere it makes sense. I keep hearing Glinda the good witch singing "wake up wake up wherever you are" and in my media saturated world I keep seeing Jack Klugman praying to take the place of his boy Pip injured in the Korean War, which in the Twilight Zone is possible. Blast reality I wish it so.

I had such good intentions of savoring every step on my walk to school marveling at the sound and feel under my awesome yak tracks, but there was a lot of glare ice and I had to watch my feet and not fall which I am proud to report I succeeded, not falling.

I needed to add a postscript I realized the song is really Come Out Come Out Wherever you are

Into the great wide open

Sometime when I'm in between the sleep and the prescribed chemically induced stupor I feel a freedom of thought and light and I want to take in every sight, sound, and emotion. Courageously I think, without that blanket of fog. I remember what it was like to have trouble sleeping, to walk without the rolling of the imaginary sea beneath me, to know that what I see is there. It is long enough and when I sense the lean of my walk I just smile. It is such an adventure this life.

It's time to kick it in

What do you do when there is really nothing to do, but wait, watch, hope, pray. I've been eating a lot of white chocolate Reeses peanut butter cups. I know that life can change in a second that one moment you are assembled to have the first ever cooking club dinner. The food is wonderful, but the company and the laughter, it is what we all have missed in the dark Michigan winter. Little Allison who I have known since she dwelled safely in her mother's belly, studying, even during dinner skipping the soup. She later entertains us with stories from the inner sanctum of being a resident and I am overwhelmed with the knowledge I know this amazing woman. I have watched her run and just when you think she cannot win, she digs in deep and surpasses her opponents with fierce determination and a job well done. She left that dinner early with her husband of a little over a year and twenty minutes later hit a patch of ice that would change their life and all those who know them. We all keep waiting for her to kick it in, I know she will. She has to.

Red Birds in The Road

I had been keeping my unusual visual hallucinations to myself, but alas sometimes they are so wondrous I am compelled to comment "Look at those amazing red birds in the road I have never seen such birds small and finch-like with bright red bodies, wings tipped in white and black" I probably will never see them again, but so grateful for that sight, so unexpected. The next day I saw a large black and white bird with a round head. all alone in a frozen field. I don't know the implications of seeing birds or bears for that matter, but I have decided it is a surprise and a gift. I will welcome these fleeting images and know somewhere they exist. Perhaps I have stumbled upon that opening in the next dimension of space. Do you ever wonder if color is the same to us all, If animals really are the superior beings? If religion is actually the opposite of it's intent. My sight is floating and tunneling another thing I just want to savor as the cloudy blurry world will soon return to it's sharp linear edges.