Fiction & Restriction

I wish I could remember the common names of those flowers!

Tempermental bursts of warm weather are beckoning me back into the cool wooded hideaways back home....

At the gated ending of an unnamed county road there lives a little old man and a not-so-little old woman. They are the best of friends, the oldest of lovers, and the easiest companions. Each summer, I find myself on their crooked wood plank porch, rapping on their screen door seeking permission to swim in the ice cold spring-fed swimming hole on their property. As I've grown older and less interested in tramping through the woods (or perhaps more fearful of lyme disease), I've begun looking forward to my visit with the ancient land holders even more than my dip in the gorge. Simply being around them as they go through their comfortable petterns of survival captures my imagination, giving birth to buds of story and song characters that threaten to bloom into a complete project....eventually.

Right now, I'm molding the not-so-little old woman into the wilderness "sage" character so essential to quest-related tales; her home, though aging and deteriorating at the same speed as her physical state, is a living, breathing character in and of itself. The chaotic prolificacy of her garden is a manifestation of her lively personality, cultivated and refined through decades of hardscrabble survival. I write her because she is all that I aspire to be -- skilled in ways of trial and observation, practiced in tragically forgotten ways, harded by the elements while somehow remaining boldy feminine.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

And now, I look at my work. My hands. Messy pen and ink would testify I've earned my keep. Even a typewriter requiring a pint of elbow grease to operate might convince me that my current profession provides bread honestly earned. But what am I still doing here, in a chair, before a window, typing on a soft-touch keyboard, awaiting some DeSoto to arrive and declare my secret worlds sacred?

It is not my heart to abandon my life as I know it. What's missing is vocational purpose. Occupational passion. I know that against all guidance counselor conditioning, I will never be a rat-to-cheese, 40-hour-a-week commuter at the core of my being. I crave self-definition in channeled, sweat-bourne expression. The mere thought of having to turn over decades of uninspiring work energy in exchange for the safety net provided by online bill payment and low health care deductibles send me spiraling into a professional depression.....

There is work, then there are responsibilities. The question is, Quigley, how does one persue one without abandoning the other??? There must be a way. Musty must must.

box or bling?

Have you ever felt that you existed within multiple realities?

I believe that I'm a clear storage box rather than a gemstone. By this, I mean that I see my "self" as containing multiple, complete personalities that surface in turn instead of possessing one personality with many different facets. All "characters" within this box share the same experiences, but they do not all share the same characteristics.

(Ach.... moments like this cause me to realize that I should've continued my college education and developed my belly-button gazing abilities on the clock, so I'd at least have a piece of resume-boosting paper to increase my workplace value!)

Slower, secretly smiling

In moments most mundane and calm,
I brush palms with our future selves,
older, softer, slower,
smiling secretly to each other.

It confounds my vanity to see them wearing
clothes that are comfortable and forgiving;
habits have crept into their bones
and twisted them into peculiar shapes --
bodyscapes beloved by dimming eyes

The familiar, trustworthy rhythm of
housework and rest
is the comforting heartbeat rocking gently
beneath your nightshirt pressed
below my ear

Our children will make up for fewer mistakes
than we were able to forgive ourselves for,
steady heart

Coffee, water, wine

Coffee, water, wine --
so my days unfold in this drowsy pattern.
A lift, a drop, a cleansing,
each worthwhile day follows the arc of a tale...
I am grateful for each
unamerican pause in the hours.

Random streetcorners in goodmorning Manhattan
never knew sleep, and neither did I;
I wandered from cup to cup,
closing my hands around it like
the first precious discovery of fire.

Wine stained my hair and fingers
the few times I felt Jewish enough to dance.
Somehow, California made sense.
One day, daughters will catch a glimpse and murmur,
Mother had an adventure,
and you will laugh, my dear, because
we live behind closed doors.

But the water is different;
it flows in and out and through,
making and breaking and wasting.
The one I so frequently neglect,
I need the most.

When I am wandering slowly from this world,
which one of these will you give me?
To choose is to say so much of how you loved...

You have always loved me well.

What's the daffo-dealeo?

You'd think that with the onset of a warmer, more encouraging season, my brain would emerge alongside the unfurling cotyleadons.... but NAE! Instead, I'm typing things backwards, watering my dogs while letting my plants out to pee, the list of constant embarrassment rolls on into infinity and over the mountain tops.

On the brighter side, the shift in sunshine hours has transformed me from a drowsy lion to a frolicksome lamb (I say, as my emotionally exhausted husband thanks Sweet Jesus)... everywhere I look, there's fresh flowers and new lime green oak leaves and the beautiful and often fuzzy results of procreation, so what's there to bemoan?

So as either a reward for his tolerance or a snub to my spring diet, I think I'm gonna go home tonight and bake us a chocolate cake. Maybe it's the sight of rich, dark soil that excited me enough to seek such carnal indulgence. If so, we'll just call this my little fertility celebration. :)