I'll Prove I'm not Dead with a Couple Photos

I'm not dead and although I've been consistently depressing and morose here at Blogging is for Dorks and over at Studio Thirty Plus I also have been quite busy with the oh so very bright lights of my life.


Olive, this sweet little beast...



dropped my camera last month on concrete two seconds after this photo was taken...



and it shattered all over the ground in dozens of pieces.

Rosey, this dear little girl had four adult teeth removed one day and the stomach flu the next...

she is still pretty gorgeous regardless...

and she took this photo of me that my Mom says makes me look like I have a piggy nose...



Speaking of taking photos and my Momma, she took this photo of my baby sister in the patio of my childhood domicile. I love it...



Jeremiah channeled Luke and Max channeled Yoda...both pretty successfully...



...Elijah was Spiderman for Halloween and also obviously a freaking giant, he's half as tall as me...



and this girl who's name is Maxine Jane...



...makes me proud everyday not only with her consistently excellent straight A work at school but also with the fact she no longer shits her pants and throws fits that cause me physical harm in grocery stores...

Featured Post at Studio Thirty Plus

Although my blog is much, much less popular than the good old days (damn you work!) I still have a real life freelancing job and also still get the chance from time to time to write some fiction.

The Confusion of Betrayal is a short piece I wrote for Studio Thirty Plus and I'd like you to check it out and tell me what you think, if you have the time of course.

And my Keurig broke and they're sending me a new one but I have to wait three to seven days! OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! French presses every day are a pain in the ass. A delicious pain in the ass though.

Sisters

They were an odd pair, the two of them. Familial circumstance had joined them in blood but their affections joined them in their hearts. And their hearts had been full.

She missed her sister. She cried at night, swallowing thick gobs of sadness with each deep breath.

She was old and weak. She didn't want to be alone anymore. She didn't want to gather the strength up each day to to pull her body out of bed.

She walked out into her yard with every inch of dignity she could muster in her flowered night gown. She fell to the ground and died with a violent spasm.

Her children mourned and her friends hoped they wouldn't die lying in their front yards dressed in an old pair of pajamas.

She walked with a proud, straight back for the first time in decades across her yard, not even stealing one glance at the sad lump in the distance behind her. She kept strong, quick strides up to the point of the vista in front of her and met her sister in a warm embrace.

They spoke no words and shed no tears. They held hands and walked into the abyss.

I Went into the Wilderness and Survived.

Packing for a trip is always stressful for me. The promise just over the horizon of whatever relaxing destination awaits me is never enough to assuage the bile of tension that is rising like butterflies soaked in syrup and then put on a rickety conveyer belt that stretches from my pussy to my throat, the butterflies able to move in the confines of the syrup but only in tortured twitches and sticky thrusts.

Yep. It's that bad.

Regardless Jeremiah and I took Elijah on a weekend trip to the mountains. It was mainly uneventful, generally wonderful and very much needed. Jeremiah conquered his fear of horses (somewhat) and befriended a very old horse named Toro that wandered free around the vast acreage of our 140 year old farm house. We fished in a pond and didn't catch anything, had to drive for thirty minutes just to find a farmer's market, hiked through woods along a creek and marveled at the fact that people actually live an every day existence out there away from everything with horses and turtles and strangely the sound of non-stop gunfire all night long.

We cooked out on a bonfire and I was so proud and impressed by Jeremiah's fire building skills, we watched movies by the wood burning pot stove/fireplace thingy and I was again impressed by Jeremiah's fire building skills and we ate apple cider donuts and talked about how very dark it was outside.

At some point something magical happened in my stomach. Right after we put Elijah to bed, after I turned off most of the lights and after Jeremiah made room for me on the couch something went pop in my tummy and the grinding rickety conveyer belt with the sickly, sticky butterflies stopped. I felt Jeremiah's warmth behind me and we watched Pacific Heights on HBO and laughed at the silliness of it. We brushed our teeth together and went to bed together. We made love in the ancient bedroom of this ancient house where generations of love had been made, babies had been born, people had died.

Jeremiah went to sleep and despite the chill I went outside and sat in the pitch dark just to revel in the amazing life I have been granted and the gifts I have been given. Trials and tribulations have come my way but there is always good that comes out of the bad. I sat there contemplating these things until the gun shots resumed again in the distance and I high tailed it inside, locked all the doors and woke up Jeremiah just to be sure that he was aware of my frightening experience.

Love Makes You Crazy in the Head (thus spaketh the six year old)

And now on to something completely different...

If you've read my blog from time to time you might notice a reoccurring "I have a hard time with Maxine Jane" theme. She's is my six year old daughter, the sometimes bane of my existence, always the love of my life but most often difficult and precocious.

The other day she got in trouble and wasn't allowed to go somewhere with Jeremiah, Elijah and Olivia while Rose was at soccer. She had to stay home with me which is tantamount to being gravely punished. I decided to take her for a walk just the two of us and five blocks away she said she had to pee. We turned around and walked back to the house.

"Maxine Jane, sometimes you make my head spin like crazy." I looked at her and smiled goofily to let her know I wasn't mad, just crazy.

"Hmmm, that just means you love me a lot." She's crazy smiling now too.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yep and that means you must really, really love Jeremiah because he makes you the craziest in your head."

Six years old and wiser than I am. I wonder when that wisdom starts fading? I'm guessing 11 because when Max recounted the story to Rosey she just rolled her eyes.

"Making someone crazy in the head isn't going to make anyone like you more ever. They're just going to be annoyed and nobody likes someone who is annoying." Rose speaks these words with the emphasis on words like AN-NOY-ing and NO-body.

Is Rosey more or less wise than Max? Or is it just dependent on personality? It is a dichotomy and maybe even a mystery.

Grief

The sun glared through the windows and into my eyes but I did not look away. I did not close my eyes. They watered and even hurt a bit and I still did not care. The spots formed and I felt nauseous and faint.

I finally closed my eyes and sat down on the pale yellow window seat, the cool painted wood under me woke me a bit from my state and I tried to form thoughts.

Nothing came.

The days' consistencies meant nothing to me. I spoke words to concerned people and did not know what I was saying or remember why I was saying them. I went to bed, got up and vomited in the toilet and got back into bed over and over again for days on end.

Or at least it felt like days, it could have very well been moments, seconds, fleeting incalculable snippets of time flying over my head like electric beams of fast moving nothingness.

When this melancholy lifted I began to see small random things in focus. The water I drank for sustenance seemed so much better when I mixed orange juice and lime juice in with it, I remembered I loved that so much.

I changed my clothes and got in the shower, used the kids coconut shampoo and scrubbed and scrubbed my body with Dove soap over and over again until the water started to turn cold. Dove soap reminded me of being in the hospital after giving birth. That first tender shower with a nurse outside your door and your mother just beyond her, making sure you were OK. The sweat and the medicinal smells of labor and delivery wash over you and are replaced with Dove soap. Your breasts ache and your asshole aches and you feel like you might just pass out. Thinking the posted nurse outside your door wasn't such a bad idea, gingerly stepping out of the thickly tiled shower without lifting one leg too high.

After the shower things were clearer. I turned on the small cream lamp on a very short table next to my bed and laid myself down. The sheets smelled of spit and greasy hair. I got up, stripped the bed and put new sheets on, took a basket of clothes to the basement and began to do laundry.

The sun outside had turned to clouds and rain in an opposite rendering of my present state of mind. The clouds in my head were clearing, but I was not sure of the weather that would present itself once they did.

I went back to my room and laid in bed once more. I smelled nothing but coconut and Dove soap. The tears came again but this time I did not vomit. I sobbed gently and fell asleep.

When I awoke the sun was again in my face, but this time I looked away. I turned my back to the window and stripped off my clothes, let the warmth play across my naked back. I took another shower, brushed my teeth and drank more orange juice with lime. The bitterness of the first few sips mixed with the remnants of tooth paste made me aware suddenly of the day and the time.

I made phone calls and plans to begin my life over again. I never felt the same again.

Sara

Bob Dylan was a confused young man who did a lot of drinking and drugging and sexing and then one day he met Sara. He loved her so much he gave up that part of his life and made a home with her. He wrote this song for her:

With your mercury mouth in the missionary times,
And your eyes like smoke and your prayers like rhymes,
And your silver cross, and your voice like chimes,
Oh, who among them do they think could bury you?
With your pockets well protected at last,
And your streetcar visions which you place on the grass,
And your flesh like silk, and your face like glass,
Who among them do they think could carry you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

With your sheets like metal and your belt like lace,
And your deck of cards missing the jack and the ace,
And your basement clothes and your hollow face,
Who among them can think he could outguess you?
With your silhouette when the sunlight dims
Into your eyes where the moonlight swims,
And your match-book songs and your gypsy hymns,
Who among them would try to impress you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

The kings of Tyrus with their convict list
Are waiting in line for their geranium kiss,
And you wouldn't know it would happen like this,
But who among them really wants just to kiss you?
With your childhood flames on your midnight rug,
And your Spanish manners and your mother's drugs,
And your cowboy mouth and your curfew plugs,
Who among them do you think could resist you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

Oh, the farmers and the businessmen, they all did decide
To show you the dead angels that they used to hide.
But why did they pick you to sympathize with their side?
Oh, how could they ever mistake you?
They wished you'd accepted the blame for the farm,
But with the sea at your feet and the phony false alarm,
And with the child of a hoodlum wrapped up in your arms,
How could they ever, ever persuade you?
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?

With your sheet-metal memory of Cannery Row,
And your magazine-husband who one day just had to go,
And your gentleness now, which you just can't help but show,
Who among them do you think would employ you?
Now you stand with your thief, you're on his parole
With your holy medallion which your fingertips fold,
And your saintlike face and your ghostlike soul,
Oh, who among them do you think could destroy you
Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands,
Where the sad-eyed prophet says that no man comes,
My warehouse eyes, my Arabian drums,
Should I leave them by your gate,
Or, sad-eyed lady, should I wait?



They loved each other very passionately and fiercely which we all know results in some fighting and making up. He went back on tour and left her and how ever many children they had with promises of a clean life on the road and returning to her the same sane good man. He never came home. He started up with the same lifestyle and told her horrible things late in the evenings when she finally could get him on the phone. He wasn't coming home.

He got in a horrible, horrible motorcycle accident and Sara rushed to his side. Some people might think she was idiotic, I think she was brave. She nursed him back to health and they had more children and more idyllic years together in their charming home in Woodstock NY. Then he went on the road again and he didn't come home again. This time she followed him and confronted him. He agreed to let her out on the road with him.

The drank and fought and were messy and unhappy. Sara returned home and he said he didn't want to be with her ever again, he was never coming home. He hated her. She told everyone, even her children that he was never coming home again. Then he came home. She relented and said just one more time. Then he wrote this for her:

I laid on a dune I looked at the sky
When the children were babies and played on the beach
You came up behind me, I saw you go by
You were always so close and still within reach.

Sara, Sara
Whatever made you want to change your mind
Sara, Sara
So easy to look at, so hard to define.

I can still see them playing with their pails in the sand
They run to the water their buckets to fill
I can still see the shells falling out of their hands
As they follow each other back up the hill.

Sara, Sara
Sweet virgin angel, sweet love of my life
Sara, Sara
Radiant jewel, mystical wife.

Sleeping in the woods by a fire in the night
Drinking white rum in a Portugal bar
Them playing leapfrog and hearing about Snow White
You in the marketplace in Savanna-la-Mar.

Sara, Sara
It's all so clear, I could never forget
Sara, Sara
Loving you is the one thing I'll never regret.

I can still hear the sounds of those Methodist bells
I'd taken the cure and had just gotten through
Staying up for day in the Chelsea Hotel
Writing "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" for you.

Sara, Sara
Wherever we travel we're never apart
Sara, Sara
Beautiful lady, so dear to my heart.
How did I meet you ? I don't know
A messenger sent me in a tropical storm
You were there in the winter, moonlight on the snow
And on Lily Pond Lane when the weather was warm.

Sara, Sara
Scorpio Sphinx in a calico dress
Sara, Sara
You must forgive me my unworthiness.

Now the beach is deserted except for some kelp
And a piece of an old ship that lies on the shore
You always responded when I needed your help
You gimme a map and a key to your door.

Sara, Sara
Glamorous nymph with an arrow and bow
Sara, Sara
Don't ever leave me, don't ever go.

Of course he did it to her again, but this time she didn't let him come home. Why this time? What made it different? Did he wear her down? Was he prone to self destruction and she just got in his way? What if he had stopped drinking and carousing? Maybe she wasn't as good and wonderful as I just made her seem and did wretched things to him so he did wretched things back. We'll never know.

I do know that I love those songs. I know that he loved her and she loved him. That they made a happy home and cherished each other. That addiction is horrid and a menace. That nothing is ever simple and things are always changing. People are always changing and then changing again. There is no end and you just have to try and try again. Again and again and again.

You need something to open up a new door, to show you something you seen before but overlooked a hundred times or more. -Bob Dylan