Lessons

You are teaching me to hold you loosely, with not too tight a grip
Typically the leader charging forward into the breach
Creating, choosing, planning every trip.
Rest easy in the moment, seasoning carries clarity
Scratch at my brain and neurons send a twitch
Grasshopper leaps and the mantis waits, which
Between the two of us someone is sure to get eaten.

Of course I'll agree to that, always willing to take a hit
For the team. Regrets are for sitting on the bench.
This grasshopper has been coached to walk, run, fly--anything but sit.
A life restrained even by a cage of gold is
Entropy, atrophy, a disability and I won't sit still for that shit.
Stillness, breath, control myself is all I could hope.
I wouldn't do it to you, but I pray you volunteer for my rope.

Miles Away(Five Sentence Story)

The cattle moaned in their stalls, milk near to bursting their udders.  Her children had grown and moved away.  Mother sat at the kitchen table, stove lit and fire banked for the night.  The clock on the wall over the mirrored cabinet ticked.  Fourteen miles from town is a long way away.

Favorite holiday

Crunchy crackles, candy wrappers
Deep blue skies and crisp air flies
Blowing leaves on corn cob sheaves

Haunted buses, sister fusses
Holding hands too scared to stand
Alone on streets the car horn beeps

Orange light and geese in flight
Costumed children, fields are barren
Autumn harvest night seems darkest

Spirits wild, a heart beguiled
With fear and terror, pumpkin bearer
Thrilling Samhain full of tricksters.

Sunday mornings

Church was torturous.  I always had to wear uncomfortable clothes, try not to sleep,  try to avoid getting smacked in the head by my dad due to restlessness, giggling, fighting with my brother or getting caught playing tic tac toe on the program. I always yawned so much tears would stream down my face.  I still yawn uncontrollably when I have to sit through a church service.  Either that or the music, prayers, or sermon overwhelm me with emotion and I cry from, what?  Sadness?  Nostalgia?  Certainly not faith or the spirit of god.

We were Lutheran, and not the crazy Lutherans thank goddess.  A well-educated, liberal community, many of the congregants were professors at Carthage College where my mother and grandmother worked in the kitchen.  For a brief moment during the time period I was in Confirmation classes I wanted to become a pastor, but they were all men and I knew it was not allowed.  Also during that time I met Pastor Lee Meyerpeter, the youth minister. A dumpy, overweight man in his early thirties with a mustache and obsession with the Milwaukee Brewers, Pastor Lee made me think maybe I could  be religious.  He was tone deaf and was not able to intone even the most minimal prayers on key.  He smiled a lot and I often beat him in Hangman during youth group.  I figured if a person could be as goofy and normal as Pastor Lee and still be a man of God, maybe I could find something in faith that fit me too.  I kind of felt sorry for him compared to Pastor Park, the handsome head Pastor with a wife and three grown kids.  Pastor Park could even sing well. Pastor Lee was clearly less accomplished and needed to practice on the youth before he could be allowed to lead a real congregation.  He was kind and flexible with our Confirmation studies too, and didn't seem to take anything too seriously.  For this agnostic, he made faith seem possible.

I remember being jealous when Pastor Lee took one of the kids in my Confirmation class to see a movie.  A redheaded boy named Greg whose older sister had cancer in the past year or so. I figured Pastor Lee was putting some extra time and attention because maybe Greg was feeling sad or left out or something with his sister being sick.  Greg and I, Sue and Shelley were all thirteen and we made up the entire youth group.  When I told my parents I should be allowed to go see the movie Porky's because Greg had seen it, my mom and dad did actually go see the movie to check it out, judge for themselves if it earned the "R" rating.  Mom absolutely hated that movie, and told me that it completely misrepresented the fifties.  "No one was that obsessed with sex, Angela!"  I had heard the movie narrowly avoided receiving an "X" rating due to sex and of course that was what made it so attractive to me.  "But Greg went to see it, I mean it couldn't be THAT bad after all, Pastor Lee took him!"  They didn't budge. If they thought it was strange that Pastor Lee took a thirteen year old boy to see Porky's, they did not mention it to me.

I was shocked when my parents told me a few months later Pastor Lee had been fired.  "What? WHY??" I demanded.  I was told he had to move on because "he's gay" my mother whispered to me.  He was fired because he is gay?  That is SO UNFAIR!  What does that matter?  He was an excellent youth pastor.  He paid attention to us, told goofy jokes, played pool with us, I beat him in Hangman.  He was awesome.  And is being gay so dangerous?  Then I heard it whispered that he was gay with Greg, the thirteen year old.  To be honest, the implication of that completely passed right over my head.  All I felt was outrage that Pastor Lee was unfairly treated because of his completely benign homosexuality.  It was wrong. It was threatening.  What did that mean for me?

After Pastor Lee was so unfairly treated in my eyes when I was at an age of questioning who I am, my beliefs and values, I saw the church and my parents as being hopelessly hypocritical.  I saw the Christian value of love and forgiveness being swept away in homophobia and it pushed me further from a faith that was on thin ice as it was.  I was no longer interested in living a life with god if that is how kind, sweet, funny people were treated just for being gay.  I started fighting with my dad about going to church.  I purposely wore clothes I knew he would not allow.  "Does god care what we wear?  I mean, REALLY, dad!"  I argued in the church service about hypocrisy, and got pinched and quietly hit and made to walk home after the service in shame. Other congregants driving by stared at me, wondering why I had to walk home.  Finally I found a solution when I was fourteen:  I got a job that required me to work on Sunday mornings.  My dad could not argue with me about that.  Work always wins.

Twenty years later I was doing sex offender treatment and I was filling in for my coworker's group.  He told me there was a new guy, he needed to do his disclosure statement.  His offense was possession of child pornography, a misdemeanor, and he didn't have to register but Joe (my coworker) knew there were victims that he hadn't gotten caught for.  The porn was of young boys.  There would be a polygraph scheduled to get the scope of his history as soon as possible. His name is Lee Meyerpeter.  "Pastor Lee?  Pastor Lee is in your group?  Holy fuck.  There can only be one Lee Meyerpeter.  Yes, I would love to hear his disclosure statement!"  As Joe and I talked about it, it was clear this guy had been my youth pastor and I was extremely emotional about him and what happened to Greg.  I suddenly saw all the nice things he did as grooming me, not to be a victim of his sexual deviance, but to be a person who would say, "No way, not him.  He is a good guy" and offer him some protection from his crimes.  Lee had been removed from our congregation and moved to another congregation in Milwaukee.  He had moved around several times and likely had many, many victims but he was only convicted of one and he was not a registered sex offender. He still had protection from wealthy friends and church officials.  Joe didn't let me run that group, and we made sure I didn't run into Pastor Lee while he was getting treatment in our office.  I think Joe moved him to the Burlington office.  I think I may have hit him if I saw him.

Finding out that the church failed Greg (and Lee) in so many more ways than I thought shattered any goodwill I had toward religion.  Attending church as an adult is something I've done always with half a heart of fear, half of hope.  It always brings up strong emotions in me, and that alone is enough to keep me out of church.

Lee A. Meyerpeter

beware

Tea

I'm a lazy tea lover, and that means I mostly drink coffee.  It takes effort to be a tea drinker.  I used to drink Diet Pepsi after Diet Pepsi and I just knew that wasn't good for me.  Plus fifty cents each at work!  Coffee is free at work.  In fact, it is like the world is so coffee-centered.  Sure, there is tea *available* if you really want to try and get some.  But coffee is just so there.  We have at least ten different kinds of tea in our house, an entire drawer dedicated to tea.  Both my kids drink tea every day.  I'm absurdly proud of that, as if that shows I am a good mom in some way, or have raised a higher class of child. For her twelfth birthday, my daughter Charlotte received a tea mug that changes from tired face to happy face with heat, loose leaf tea, a ceramic spoon holder and an adorable yellow submarine tea diffuser.  She was thrilled.  Charlotte also loves coffee and can't wait to be old enough to be allowed to drink coffee.  But I suspect she will love tea more in the long run.  Tea is like nutrition, coffee more dessert.

Libra

You know what I hate?  I hate when I like someone and I look up our signs and it says, "Libra:  avoid Taurus".  Cause maybe I really like that Taurus?  I like the Chinese placemat birth signs better:  I'm a Cock on those. Yeah, that is a sign I can get behind.  Libra:  wishy-washy, creative, well-balanced.  In a word:  boring.

"The Cock is kind-hearted, but occasionally brutally aggressive." 

 NOW WE'RE TALKING!  

Fuck that Libra shit.  I want to be the Rooster.

Comfort

"some cultures are defined by their relationship to cheese"


this one is for you, kerrie

My favorite person

Today it was easy to choose a subject for the topic.  My grandfather, Carlo Francis Acerbi is and will always be my very favorite person.  He grew up in Kenosha and lived here his whole life.  In the above photo he was fourteen years old.  I consider my grandfather to be my primary caregiver in my life.  He was always there for me and showed me what love is through the example of his life and how he treated others.  Gramps filled my heart with stories of his life, he was able to make things seem golden and warm all the time.  His parents were from Italy, and his father Pietro ( we called him Nonnu) first emigrated to Argentina but apparently didn't like it there because he went back to Italy and got his wife and brought her to America.  Her name was Ancilla, and I am named after her.  She was Nonna.  Nonno died when I was four years old, I never met Nonna.  Grandpa talked about them all the time and had dreams about them that he called visits.  He believed they watched over him, talked to him while he slept.  He also believed in ghosts and that he would dream what horses to bet on at the track.

Gramps and his father, ^ Pietro Acerbi.  Gramps said although Nonnu was a carpenter, he spoke like an educated man and didn't have a heavy Italian accent.  He had a vaguely European accent, which Gramps was proud of.  It was clear that my family was sophisticated, not low class like some of those immigrants.  Or that was the impression.

 This photo ^ is of my grandfather and his brother Mario.  Gramps was the oldest of three boys.  There was an older boy named Guilio who died at the age of fourteen.  He had been climbing on an abandoned building and fell.  Gramps said it took him a couple of weeks to die from his injuries.  He also had a sister who died in infancy.  Grandpa was in a band when he was young, he played the banjo and I have his banjo, which I had restored. One story he told is that his first job was writing numbers on the board with a piece of chalk for a bookie.  He also used to live near the train depot and would run over with other neighborhood kids when a freight train arrived and help unload the trains for a few pennies.  One time he unloaded huge bunches of bananas and there was a giant spider on his bunch, but it was very sluggish because it was cold!  Gramps did not attend or complete high school; he dropped out after ninth grade to work.  He ended up being the head of the Street Department for the city, and retired as a city employee.  Gramps was a great schmoozer and natural all around good guy.

Grandpa was married twice.  His first wife was named Sophie but liked to be called Pat, and they had four kids.  His second wife, Edith, is my grandmother.  They  had two children together.  They met during World War Two working in a factory making airplane parts.  He was separated from his first wife but not divorced when they met, and Grandma felt she was not accepted by his kids because of that.  They blamed her for the divorce.  Grandpa didn't seem bothered by any of that.  His youngest son with Pat, my Uncle Bobby, lived with him and Grandma.  Family stories say that Pat either drank too much to take care of Bobby or just didn't want to raise him.  Grandpa told me Gram used to hit Bobby, so one time he hit her.  I asked, "What did she do?"  He said she took the kids and went to her dad's house and left him, "Which she should have done!"  And she said she would not come back unless he promised to never do it again.  So he made her promise to never hit Bobby again.  I don't know if she did, but Uncle Bobby really dislikes my Grandma still.  I could write a whole book about her life of childhood abuse, but that is another story.

Because he was divorced, he was not allowed to take communion at church until his first wife died.  Gramps was Catholic and took it seriously.  My boyfriend Corydon took him to church and breakfast every Sunday while we lived with them.  When Corydon and I shared a house with Gramps and Gram, Grandpa would say to me, "What kind of a guy would live with a woman and not ask to marry her?  Is he a good guy or not?"  I replied, "Grandpa, maybe Corydon begs me to marry him every day and I say no!"  Then he would say, "WHAT?!!?  What's the matter with you?  He is a good guy, you are not going to do better than him!"  

Grandpa was also a HUGE flirt, especially with waitresses.  I felt I could tell him or ask him anything.  Once I asked him if he ever cheated on Grandma.  He looked at me out of the sides of his eyes and said, "I'm not telling you.  You'll snitch!"  

This picture ^ is of Grandpa and my youngest sister, Amanda.  This look on his face is how he looked at all of us.  He adored every one of his grandchildren, most especially the girls.  He had nicknames for each of us, and would sometimes sprinkle Italian words into conversations.  I am not ashamed to say that I was his favorite.  He called me "Strunsetta Petuletta" which I am sure is a made up phrase loosely based on Italian meaning "petulant little shit".  He called my sister Sara "Testa Rosa" because she has red hair, and he called Amanda "Cockoo Pulackoo" which I think means nothing except "I love and adore you" in his own language.  

Grandpa had a very goofy sense of humor.  We would spend weekends at he and Gram's house and get McDonald's, which was a huge treat, watch cartoons together and he would laugh and laugh.  He loved Tom and Jerry, the Three Stooges, and any old movies and television shows.  Saturday nights we watched The Love Boat and Fantasy Island, the nightly news, and then he let me stay up to watch The Late Show.  I was allowed to have canned pears or peaches canned in syrup for dessert, or maybe fruit cocktail.  Of course I was allowed to pick out the cherries for myself.  The Late Show was often old horror movies.  Bela Lugosi was our absolute favorite, but we also loved Claude Rains and Lon Chaney, Jr.  Abbot and Costello would make us laugh until our sides ached, especially when they were IN THE HORROR MOVIES TOO!  That was the best possible mash up imaginable.  

He was exceedingly generous, had candy and Hubba Bubba in his glove compartment at all times, and always always took my side.  I remember one time going to K-mart with him and promising myself I would NOT ask him to buy anything and I would not allow him to buy me anything.  Every time we went somewhere he always bought me a little something and I wasn't sure I deserved all that.  I browsed away from him, looking at albums and music that I liked, checking out the hats and shoes.  He asked me if I wanted anything and I said no.  We left the store together and I noticed that he had a bag in his hands. In the car, he showed me a Dr. Demento tape I had been looking at AND a pair of gloves I had tried on!  He snuck behind me and bought me things anyway!  

^ This is Gramps after he had a stroke.  He was eighty-four and we were living downstairs from him and Grandma when it happened.  It was the middle of the night, and grandma called on the phone, was very upset and said that Grandpa had fallen out of bed and she couldn't get him back up.  We went upstairs and he was on the floor, couldn't talk, and could not move. He was awake and trying to talk.  We called 911 and picked him up and put him on the bed.  Why that was important, I do not know.  I rode in the ambulance and Corydon drove Grandma to the hospital.  He had brain surgery and was in a coma for several days before he woke up.  He still had his sweet disposition, but got wild ideas that had to be satisfied, like going into the basement or getting down on the floor.  He would ask and ask and then when we finally gave in and helped him to the basement or onto the floor, he seemed confused as to why he wanted it and just wanted to sit in his chair. He knew all of us, but just wasn't physically strong and his cognitive abilities were decimated.  

Taking care of him took much patience.  Grandma did a wonderful job, with our help of course.  He had the stroke on March 7 and died on June 1.  It seemed like years, not three months, and it was a relief when he died.  

This last photo is my favorite.  Grandpa came over to our house nearly every day.  He would come in the back door without knocking, open the kitchen door with just this look.  He would whistle to let us know he was there, and when he saw me he would smile so sweetly and say, "Hi boo!  Come and give your grandpa a smooch!"  I remember his smell, the feel of his body in my arms when I hugged him, how it felt to snuggle next to him on the couch and hold his hand.  He never had a bad word to say about anyone and was the sweetest man I have been blessed to know.  

Safety

I have a problem with wanting to know I am doing The Right Thing. The type of person who walks around a clothing store with items folded over her arm, I debate and think and question myself and end up walking out of the store with nothing.  Big decisions or small, I want some kind of guarantee that my choice works out before I commit.  This was highlighted when my nephew had cancer.  My sister and her husband approached the issue in a way that baffled and frustrated me.  I called my friend Sandy The Cancer Researcher for information sources, referrals, ideas on how to handle the doctors.  They prayed.  I weighed the pros and cons of having a positive, collegial relationship between the doctors in Chicago and the doctors in Boston versus the doctors in Texas having more experience treating this kind of cancer.  They discussed the weather that time of year in Boston vs. Texas because, "If we are going to have to stay there for a couple of months, we might as well make a vacation out of it."  I wanted to know every possible side effect and future challenge Jack might face.  They didn't want to know or worry about things until they had to deal with it.  Possible deafness?  Cognitive delays?  "Why worry about something that might not even happen?"  

From that experience I received a piece of advice that struck me to my heart.  Red, my girlfriend at the time, explained to me that we can make a decision for the best reasons and still have the worst possible outcome.  We can also make a decision based on what some might think are frivolous reasons, and have the best possible outcome.  I never really saw it that way.  I thought, if I use good reasons to make decisions that means I get a good outcome.  Elementary, my dear Watson!  It was a revelation that even well thought out, reasoned, reasonable decisions could still result in heartbreak, pain, and desolation.  And to be honest, in Jack's case it very well could happen either way.  Or now that it has been two years, I know that no matter what happened, we have grief.  He is alive, and struggles to walk.  He has hearing aids, special glasses, undetermined cognitive delays.  But he can talk and has a great sense of humor and never, ever gives up no matter what.  Seriously.  He plays us into the ground.

This is what has kept me in my marriage, in my relationships with women that are less than what I deserve, less than satisfying.  I have no guarantee of a positive outcome, so I walk around the store with stuff draped over my arm and I end up walking out with nothing.  As my once-favorite band Rush has pointed out, "if you choose not to decide you still have made a choice."  There is no safety, only choices.  

Stealing

It is hardly stealing when the heart in question 

Leaped into my pocket.  

True enough, I knew it was there when I left the store.  

A payment deferred will carry interest. 

Is the cost worth the value? Nothing is free anymore.  

The thing is I didn't know I was shopping, 

Or that the heart in question was greatly reduced for quick sale.

Surely intention carries some protection from the law.

At worst a misdemeanor, at best a fine.

I'm prepared to do service in repayment for my crime.

Prompt by e. E.

I wrote this during the At Risk Youth book tour by e.E. Charlton-Trujillo when she was in town.  She asked the kids to write and I decided to participate also.  I was too emotional to share it publicly, but will share here.  The prompt was:  If someone only knew...

If someone only knew the best of what she could do, that person would fall down like a heart attack like lightning struck, the scales would fall like Saul became Paul on the road to Damascus. That someone would reach out and take her hand, hold her and take care of her because she can do it all, she can carry it and sing and dance and cry if she needs to.  If someone only knew how good it could be, the power of it would light up the city of New York and all the surrounding boroughs.  They'd be talking about it for years to come, if someone only knew what she was capable of, her intense strength and deep power to hold it all in her heart.

Cleaning house

I started my job as Director of Residential Care on January 2, 2007.  My job was kind of a reshuffle of two or three previous jobs, a new meal made entirely of leftovers.  It was created as an opportunity to restructure when a guy retired, to move things around that had been put in place to shore up the weaknesses of some of the key people. Dysfunctional systems are in place to support dysfunctional people who are not going anywhere.

Maybe that is why there tends to be a certain amount of turnover whenever there is a change in leadership. Not only do people get used to how a supervisor operates, but the system itself develops certain methods to shore up weaknesses that are in themselves fucked up.  In my inner circle we call it "cleaning house" when folks can't get used to new tolerance levels, new procedures, or just a different style when there is a new supervisor.  Ideally we are able to do what we call "counsel them out of the job", or talking people into quitting.  Not talking them into it exactly, but talking with them, listening to what they want, and asking them to decide if their needs would not be met better someplace else.  This is helpful in many ways.  Typically, no one wants to get fired.  Also if someone quits we definitely don't have to pay unemployment.  Tip:  if someone says "I'm quitting" get it in writing, right then and there.  BOOM.

I'm proud of the fact that I didn't fire any of the staff that left in the year or two after I started my job.  Quite a few people quit though, and some of that was due to "counseling" or them knowing the ax was coming down eventually if they couldn't get their shit together.  There was some further shuffling of supervision as well, and the two previous directors who stayed on to work part time in certain roles moved to different supervisors.  Supervising the people who had my job before me was awkward.

I didn't try to predict who would chafe under my new leadership and supervision, and eventually have to leave.  Some of the people I now supervised were strangers to me and those I did know I didn't know well, at least not anymore. I had supervised a few in the past or we had been coworkers years before, having lunch together or socializing on the weekends.  I had a history of some kind with most of them.  One person made me very anxious.  I had many drunken flirtations with her years before and thought she was interested in me.  Maybe she was, but when I was direct and asked if she wanted to sleep together, she handled it by asking her boyfriend if it was okay for her to sleep with me.  Unsurprisingly, he thought it was a bad idea. He doesn't really like me but that is fine; I don't like him.  Now they are married and have three kids.  My directness in asking her if she was interested in exploring something sexual was the death of our friendship.

Hmmm, what is the count?  At least four people quit in some dramatic way in my first year and a half or so. That is a lot when I have a total of twenty people.  It was rough, that period of cleaning out the baggage that was awkward or uncomfortable or didn't fit any longer in this space.  Like all housecleaning, it was worth the effort and freshened up the joint.



 

Bleeding

it doesn't hurt it burns and makes me shine
electric shudder across the continent of my skin the feeling fades but not completely 
and then another and it brings me down further into me and her 
the glow around her eyes like black and white fantasies from long ago late late shows
the monsters my heart pounds
the first revulsion transforms to magnetic piercing glances teeth so white and sharp 
of course it hurts in the way i have always wanted it to more and more 
i can feel my irises snick open falling into the thick soft lips the monster plays with me now the red line slowly rolls down and a gasp from the audience 
am i the piercer or the pierced?

Sunny day

You walk along the path, barefoot.  Sand is soft on the bottoms of your feet with the occasional big, bleached chunk of shell easy enough to avoid.  There are tiny, broken bits in the fine mix but they are not pokey or sharp on your feet.  The path twists between palm trees.  Silvery heads of sea oats bounce in the slight breeze at the tops of hillocks hiding the ocean view.  Passing through the flora, you are confronted with expansive white sands, hot and soft further away from the deep teal water.  You close your eyes and take a deep breath, allowing the salty air to expand your lungs and stretch your diaphragm, as the yoga videos instruct.  Tilting your head back and squinting, you feel the hot solar power on your face.  The sun is so bright you can see red through your eyelids.  

Continuing toward the water, the sand soon becomes uncomfortably hot on the soles of your feet.  You try to shuffle a bit, get to the cooler sand under the top layer, but there is no relief there.  At this point you are keeping yourself from running as you did as a child, hightailing it for the cooling water.  Brisk-stepping restraint soon gives way to a trot, then flat out running for the water.  Laughing out loud, you realize you are alone on the beach in any case and can be as childish as pleases you.  The sand is firm and cool near the water's edge, and your pace slows to a walk.  You peel off your shorts and shirt and step into the water.  You imagine a sizzle and some steam rising from your feet as the water cools your red skin.  Walking further into the water, you look down and see your feet, absurdly whitish blue in the crystal clear ocean.    

You walk deeper into the water until it us just over your waist.  Your hands trail and dip, making swirls and currents to the sides.  You close your eyes, inhale, and lean back until the water gently covers your shoulders, lifting your feet off the sandy ocean floor.  You rock gently, arms thrown wide, knees slightly bent.  Eyes closed, you hear the unidentified, ambient sounds under the bubble of the surface.  Light penetrates the surface of your skin and you finally, gratefully are warm.

Rainy days

Frances lifted her head and looked at the monochrome sky.  She could taste the rain that hung in the air, almost swollen to bursting just above her. How can the sky be so heavy with molecules yet to coalesce?  It was one of those things, like how airplanes can fly and how television works.  It makes sense to someone, just not me, she smiled to herself.  I'm just a simple country girl.  

She lifted herself onto the step and pulled into the seat of the tractor, stood on the clutch and brake because they were far enough away she had to stand up with her full weight on the pedals to compress them to the floor for shifting.  This tractor is not built for her slight frame, but she made do with what she had.  We always do, she thought.  As she guided the machine down the parallel rows of dirt churning chocolate earth with silver blades, memories of the past two years floated through her mind, as thoughts and memories do when a body is engrossed in a simple, physical task and leaves the mind to wander.  

She and her five "sisters" as they though of  themselves, although they were so much more than sisters, pooled their money and bought land held in common trust three years ago. They finally did what they had so often talked about over dinner, drinks, while cleaning the kitchen, in bed as they cuddled with one or more after making love.  They built a community based on their own needs and wants, not what was imposed by the outside world of men and business, servitude as Molly called it.  A year was spent getting the land ready for occupation.  A cottage built on weekends and during vacations from work, following plans developed by Judith and a work schedule drawn up by Nancy and Dot.  Tools were borrowed from friends and family or sometimes rented, while Frances kept a detailed journal of all activities, so they could decide together what was essential to own for a successful life away from "greater" society.  All resources pooled, all decisions made by consensus.

The tractor shook and growled under her and her biceps flexed as she wrenched the wheel and turned the corner at the edge of the field.  There certainly have been ups and downs.  The emotional dependence on one another seemed at first to be a driving reason to create this community.  As time passed and relationships shifted, the emotional intensity started to feel like a burden.  But Molly was a great one for creating change, calling the group to task to take care of simmering issues, managing to ensure each one felt heard and loved, even through tough times.  In her previous life she had been a kindergarten teacher, destined for old maid status which of course is no status at all.  Frances considered Molly's intelligence and her open and loving heart, and felt gratitude wash over her that these women together had the courage to do what none of them could do alone.  We can be who we are from the inside out, rather than allowing outside forces destine our characters.  We can be whole.

At that moment, Frances felt and saw raindrops splatting coldly on her bare arms.  She lifted her face just as the clouds finally released and she was washed clean with the water of the sky.

My Favorite Place

"yes."

cool skin warmed with contact

arms ache to lift and turn a body

pressing hard and soft, confidence in my strength and her desire

to get it hard, harder

moist black boots

salty cleft that feels like home

Mine.  yes, only yours 

this is where i belong, where the yes is

place doesn't matter, but i love it best in the ferns

Food

Gram's Italian Spinach

One large bag of frozen spinach
Extra virgin olive oil
Cider vinegar
Fresh garlic cloves
Salt
Black pepper


Put the spinach into a glass container, sprinkle with water, cover with paper towel.  Microwave on high for six minutes, stir.  Microwave on high for six more minutes, stir.  Microwave on high for six more minutes, let sit for ten minutes in the microwave.  Stir, see how soft the spinach is.  Spinach should be soft and dark.  Microwave again for four minutes if not sufficiently soft.  If it is done enough, use a fine strainer and squeeze out all the water from the spinach, place into another bowl.  When as much of the moisture is squeezed out of the spinach as possible, sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Pour olive oil liberally over the spinach, mix together with a fork.  Peel and press fresh garlic to taste into the spinach, at least three medium cloves, maybe more.  Put your index and middle fingers over the mouth of the cider vinegar bottle so it doesn't dump too much into the bowl and sprinkle the cider vinegar in the spinach.  Mix up with a fork and let it sit on the counter for about half an hour.  Taste the spinach and see if it needs more salt or vinegar, those are the things that usually need to be added.  If there is too much salt or vinegar, sprinkle with water to cut the flavor a bit.  Refrigerate and serve cold or room temperature.  

Mangia, bellas!


This dish is a family favorite and is always a hit when I serve it or bring it to potlucks.  The garlic, vinegar, and salt also make it unlikely to go bad quickly and can last quite a while in the fridge or even room temperature.  However, we have never really tested that as it gets eaten so quickly.  It is good as a side dish, spread on sandwiches, mixed in with rice and coconut gravy or peanut sauce, mixed in with a red sauce and pasta.  I add it to anything else I am eating and it always enhances the flavors, or I just eat it with a fork.  Fair warning:  will turn your poo very green.

Childhood memory

I used to fight boys.  It started with boys pushing me around, making me kiss them and I decided fuck that shit.  I could be as tough as a boy.  So I started some fights with boys I knew I could take, less confident ones and preferably smaller than I.  I got a reputation for being just a little crazy.  I had a regular group of coconspirators from the neighborhood and sometimes we played football with other groups of boys.  Me and my gang thought it was funny, the way the other teams always underestimated me.  We'd run a few plays and the other team never covered me.  I was just a girl after all.  Then we would do the surprise play:  Ange goes deep, into the end zone, and pass it to her.  Dumb fuckers, it always fooled them.  My team laughed and laughed, high fived, and then did it again in a few plays.  It was like the other boys could not believe I could catch it again, like the first time was a fluke.  Maybe some of the smarter teams put one of the less athletic kids to cover me.  I was always able to run faster, jump higher than those kids and score.

Of course, puberty changed all that.

Grace

Mask, glove, whites, lame

Lunge through shoulder, thigh, and wrist

Julia parries.

Travel

Square boxes with spidery handwriting: “Chicago White Sox game”, “New Mexico with Carly and Barb”, “Carlsbad Caverns”.  Inside each box is a round carousel full of square slides. After dinner Gramps put up the folding screen, a turquoise colored metal tube with a folding tripod stand.  The unrolled screen smells strangely electric, as though the  sparkly, rough texture on the white side has absorbed crystallized photons from previous viewings.  Adults gather on the couch, kids playing around on the floor until the lights go out and we are hushed.  We jockey for who gets to push the button on the projector moving the carousel forward with a metallic clunk and whir of the fan. The labels are a rough guide to the contents, the collection of overly bright New Mexico cacti and rocks also containing a few surprise slides from great grandpa playing bocce ball at a family picnic on Simmons Island, then a gila monster attempting to hide from the camera, then some shots of my great uncles in black and white, posing in front of smooth-lined Oldsmobiles with runners. They wear white t shirts and pants that start up over their belly buttons, mugging like gangsters.  

Grandma loves the oldest photos, the black and white ones of people most of us in the room have never met.  My mother prefers the  kodachrome Christmas ones in her childhood home, silver aluminum tree surrounded by presents, her dog Chico who was put to sleep for pissing too much on the carpet, my aunts in beehives, holding Tom Collins glasses and ever-present cigarettes. My gramps and I love the ones of New Mexico.  The series of slides in the New Mexico carousel has a definite rhythm building to an exciting denouement.  Cacti, rocks, my grandma, aunt and uncle squinting in the clearly blinding sun lead to shots of an unfinished road in the middle of nowhere where my gramps bought a plot of land to build his dream home.  That is interesting to me, the thought of visiting a place and loving it so much, you just buy land and build a home there.  We hear again the story of how Grandma cried and cried and didn’t want to leave her (grown) babies to move far away to the desert, so they never did move.  All builds to the thrill of Carlsbad Caverns.  In the living room Grandma grimaces as Gramps describes the wait outside for the sun to set, we see shots of the mouth of the cave, I push the button before Gramps asks me to because we have all heard this narrative many times before.  Clunk, whirrr and the sky is growing darker.  Clunk, whirrr we can see stars now in the yellow, green, and blue sky.  The cave is pitch black.  Clunk, whirr and there it is!  The slide where the bats are erupting out of the mouth of the cave like some kind of creepy, living, flying vomit.  We all shudder at the thought of so many bats at one time, right over our heads.  Then the show moves to the interior of the caves, named limestone formations lit with colored lamps, underground lakes with blind fish.  We kids argue about the difference between stalagmites and stalactites.  The excitement ebbs, someone turns on the lights, and Gramps whispers to me, “someday I’ll take you there, doll.”  

Writing experiment

Instead of NaNoWriMo, some friends and I are taking some topics and writing every day in the month of November and sharing the results.  Since I have this blog, I thought I'd use it rather than clutter up the page with my writings.  I haven't written here in a long time.  Resurrections!  Yay!