Dearest Blogger Friends,

I leave tomorrow for a week at the Sisters of Loretto convent, hoping to get the bulk of my novel finished. I plan to blog the novel after I've done a bit of editing, and I will most likely do some writing about my experiences, just as I did last year. For your reading pleasure while I am gone, I have taken the liberty of posting my journal entries from last year's retreat, written in the form of a letter to Mickey. I will be back to regular posting next Saturday.

Dear Mickey, Part I

Dear Mickey,

Sunday, August 1, 2004

Afternoon

What a beautiful place I find myself, and I’m here for a week. A week to write, reflect, to soak in the beauty around me. Do you remember my story called Blessings? I was at a retreat with women from my church at Grailville. This convent, the motherhouse for the Sisters of Loretto, is similar, but on a much grander scale. There is an infirmary for retired and/or ailing sisters, all of whom, with their wizened faces and withered bodies, hold stories and secrets that probably God only knows. My hunger to hear and write those stories grows stronger every day, and my sojourn here, I feel, will only make that calling even louder. It is spectacular here. Coming in from dinner, the mourning doves called me, seeking to lure me outside, but I am determined to hold you close in my heart, to put these words down that express how I feel, even if you never read these words. I want to use this time here to solidify my thoughts and feelings about you, to find a way to express them so that I can help my heart understand.

I took a walk after unpacking, stopping to capture on film the devastation of a tree fallen by the winds of time, the beauty of a butterfly, and the mystic wonder of the bird sculpture greeting all who enter the Sisters of Loretto. I took a picture of the surprise lilies (the nuns call them “naked ladies” figure that one out), in full bloom here, and then put my camera away. I walk back more slowly, and as I walked, I heard a whisper, gaining the momentum of sound, I discovered the mouth of a babbling brook. I had missed it on the trek down, intent as I was on my mission, and only noticed on the way back because I was remembering how intently you looked out the window, how soaked in your surroundings you were when we were driving around retrieving sand on Thursday. I mimicked your purposeful attention, and lo and behold, there was the brook, less than a foot in width, making the most beautiful water music, unsurpassed even by Handel’s rendition, gurgling happily, clearly, peacefully, as it trundled away from the pond to destinations unknown.

The grounds of the convent cover over 700 acres, one fifth in pastures (they raise cows), one fifth in woodlands, one fifth in buildings, one fifth in ponds (they have three, more on that later) and one fifth in crops. There is a small cemetery, waiting my exploration, dotted with exquisite sculptures of biblical beings depicting the seven sorrows, several water gardens with waterfalls, much larger in scope than I could ever contemplate in my backyard, and lovely trees and flowers carefully tended and labeled. The birds are plentiful serenading in exquisite harmony with the katydids and cicadas, adding a soundtrack to the spiritual context of this peaceful oasis. There are only women here. No men. There are promises of skinny dipping after dark in the pool.

I find myself holding close your memory. I look at your picture in the tiny screen of my camera, seeking to learn your truth, retracing the hours of memories of Thursday and the Thursday before that and the Thursday before that, trying to discern the direction of your heart. To no avail, you are indeed an enigma. But this week, I seek to learn the truth of my own heart. At dinner tonight, the women were talking about the musical instruments they play, and I couldn’t help myself, I told them how you play Mozart with your hands, trying feebly to demonstrate. The leader of our group smiled and said, “Oh Betty, you ARE in love.” One of the other women, the one who joined the convent when she was thirteen, said, “Yes, its like she’s seventeen.” And she smiled at me wistfully.

I inquired about geodes, hoping to find one to bring home to you, an addition to your collection of gems. All the veterans looked at me quizzically. Geodes? Perhaps not. Perhaps I will have to find something else to bring back with me for you.

Evening

I explored the cemetery; rows and rows of rounded monuments, on a simple base, Sister Sister
Name Ann Marie Jaloup
Died Died
Date April 17, 1894
Age 35 years

They bury them by year, starting in 1856, the year the convent was founded, up through the newly dug graves at the other end of the U shaped cemetery. There’s not much more room, but there aren’t very many more sisters….although three new ones joined today. In the middle of the cemetery are the memorials for the priests. There aren’t many of them, but they are grand artifices, with angels and crosses and epitaphs and their life stories carved into stone. It made me angry, looking at the rows and rows of simple graves and the ornate statuary adorning the graves of the priests. I fought that anger, fought the bile in my throat and resisted spitting on the ground in front of the central gravestones. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a granite structure, large, rough hewn, with obvious carvings I couldn’t make out from the center of the graveyard. It stuck out like a swollen thumb, clearly out of sync with the other gravestones. I walked over to examine. It was a free standing granite slab, unpolished around the edges, with a polished face and carvings within. This was the grave memorializing the slaves that had been owned by the convent in the mid 1850’s, who were buried, unmarked, in the outlying corners of the cemetery. Mary, and her seven offspring, unnamed. James and Beulah, and their children. On the front, imbedded in a brass plaque, were the cascading sillouettes of African faces, men, women, children. I stood there, tears streaming down my face, shameful of my white skin, angry again at the society that celebrates one’s color and one’s gender, but not necessarily one’s character.

Nightfall

After our large group session, we dallied in the kitchen with margarita’s and chips. Charlotte, with the excitement of a five year old on Christmas morning, hands me a cup with a blue handiwipe folded inside it. I open the handiwipe to discover a collection of small rocks. “You said you wanted rocks to take home to your sweetie. I found these on my walk.” she said, proudly. I looked at the rocks, imagining you shaking your head in dismay. I look up at her eager, smiling face and hug her. “Thank you, Charlotte. These rocks are perfect. You are such a sweetie for thinking of me.”

The wimps headed up for bed at ten, but three of us ventured out into the dark to listen to the night sounds. The moon was just coming up, the stars were already bright points of light in the sky. Charlotte, the 52 year old Appalachian woman who married at 14, was a grandmother at 30, who has never had a vacation, has never ridden in an airplane, has never seen an ocean, has never been on a train, who lives in a trailer jam packed with stuff she is saving for the house she hopes to own someday, who collects Coke memorabilia (?) and who co-authored a book of poetry with 11 other Kentuckians, pointed to a spot beyond the trees. “oh, look!” My head swiveled, my eyes adjusting to the dark, and through the branches of the cedar trees, I caught my first look at the orange ball barely visible just above the horizon. My breath caught in my throat. It was so beautiful. Full and round and orange, glowing with a slight covering of misty clouds, shimmering over the pond casting its orange reflection on the water was the most beautiful moon I’d ever seen. We stood there, silent, respectful, breathing in the sweet night air, hearing the crickets cadence in the background, in awe of the beauty before us. How I wished you could see it. I felt a longing I hadn’t felt since before I had Scott, a longing to share, a longing to love and be loved, a longing to belong to something greater than myself. I wished you were there to see that moon with me.

Monday, August 02, 2004

Morning

I woke up happy and rested, snuggled under the covers, remembering the record I found resting on my kitchen door just before I left yesterday. I’m sorry I missed seeing you, but what a treat to know you had been thinking of me. I bounded out of bed, slipping on my dirty clothes from yesterday, padding downstairs in my barefeet, walking shoes and socks in hand. I got my coffee, my CD player, all of my exercise accoutrements and headed outside. The birds, oh Mickey, the birds are incredible out here. Bob Whites and goldfinches and red finches and swallows and doves and cardinals and robins and wrens and thrushes and many other birds I haven’t a clue what to call them. All singing, all happy, all celebrating the luxury they have of living in such a beautiful setting. I sat in a rocking chair, sipping my coffee, mentally planning my day and my writing. Its funny, my primary goal is to write as much down as I can to share with you. Don’t know why that is so important, but here I sit, making sure it happens. I wanted to walk, a good strong, heart thumping walk, and shower and get clean clothes on. No make up and no bra this week! (except for power walking, of course, then I wear a bra. Lol) I am writing the play that I will direct at the Florida gathering in October. I mentally outlined it, sorting through the scenes of the past 20 years, finding a starting point, agreeing on an ending point…gotta save room for a sequel, you know. I took my walk, marveling at the friendliness of the people who live here. Virtually EVERY car that passed waved to me. Not just a flicker of fingers, but a heartfelt wave of their entire hand, an acknowledgement of my presence and carrying with it a genuine wish for my well being. I could feel it! I was impressed. Cows grazed and mooed along the way. A miniature Doberman warned me away from the grass in his yard, horses nibbled silently in the distance. The houses sat on knolls of gently rolling green. On my way back, a gaggle of guinea hens heralded my arrival, squawking a warning, the cacophony deafening. I stopped to listen and this alarmed them even more. They waddled away, their heads bobbing in perfect synchrony, pausing to see if I was moving on, squawking all the louder when they realized I wasn’t. As soon as I headed on down the road, however, the sounds died quickly, and all was right with their world again.

I listened to the Proclaimers all the way through, removing the headphones as Jean, You Let Me Get Lucky With You faded away, and listening instead to nature’s stereo. As I crested a hill, I caught a whiff of the most wonderful scent I could remember. I looked to my left and saw only brambles of wild rose but to the right, the soft green of newly mowed grass panoramaed below me and I inhaled deeply. Ah, yes. I remember this smell, tempered with cow manure, clear, free flowing water, and the unpolluted hilly atmosphere. For a moment, I was back on the prairie in Indiana and I was 10 again, riding my bike down the hill at breakneck speed, the wind billowing out my long, stringy locks, stretching my arms above my head, smelling the newly mown hay.

I heard water sounds again and ventured over to the ditch at the side of the road. A perfectly formed waterfall greeted me, naturally formed, two steps about a foot high each, clear water cascading over mossy fieldstones. Yes! I thought. That’s what I want in my back yard!

Afternoon

Our first small group session went very well. There are two other women in my group. Sister Mary Carol is a nun, she entered the convent when she was thirteen, took her vows when she was eighteen, which was 39 years ago, teaches English and French in a Catholic School in Northern Kentucky. She is short, about 5’2”, not particularly thin, but not fat either. She has short brown hair with a slight salty flavor to it, green, friendly eyes and full lips very similar to mine. Her eyes crinkle when she smiles and she smiles often. She has a quietness about her which is very nunlike, but she doesn’t bat an eye when I discuss my romantic adventures or during the steamier parts of the play that I’m writing. I had turned to her last night and told her that I had some trepidation about offending her with some of my stories, but she threw her head back and laughed and said, “Listen, Betty, I teach high school. If they can’t offend me, then I’m pretty sure you can’t either. Forget that Sister in front of my name.” So I have, but I can’t help comparing the two of us. She is a virgin…at least, I’m assuming she is, I haven’t asked her. And here am I, discussing my 22nd first date in 2004 (quite a bomb, the guy wouldn’t talk! I had to tell dirty jokes for half an hour just so I could use up enough time to leave politely) and explaining why I’m still going on dates when I espouse such strong feelings for you. Andrea rode up with me from Cincinnati. She is a 49 year old woman who lives in Finneytown and teaches English at Winton Woods High School. She looks kinda like Anne Bancroft, and is writing a book called “Becoming an Only Child” about her childhood. One of her brothers died in an automobile accident when she was 13, then four years later, her other brother committed suicide, never recovering from the grief of losing his brother. She is rather reserved, being married for over 25 years, the mother of a poet who just graduated with honors from Ohio State University, a son attending Bowling Green and a younger son who is a sophomore at Finneytown High School. She has a rather idyllic life, if you take out the part about her brothers. Funny how you can’t do that, though. Funny how you have to live with the whole package that is your life.

After small group, I got a call from Rexford. He refused to check in with Scott while I’m away, refusing to parent him until he apologizes for his behavior the night you brought him home. It puts me in a tough spot. Scott is a pretty good kid when it comes to responsible behavior. I’ve never caught him drinking, or smoking, or doing drugs. I’ve never caught him stealing or being in other people’s yards, or being where he has not told me he’s going. He’s not a party guy and he doesn’t seem to be particularly interested in girls at this point. But still. He’s only 16. He agreed to sleep at my mother’s, but last night, unbeknownst to me, he called Grandma and told her he was sleeping over at his friend John’s house. I feel uncomfortable leaving Grandma responsible for him because, well, because she’s not very responsible. Lol. I’m sure he’ll be fine. I left a message with Grandma that Scott needs to sleep at her house and check in with me three times a day. It sucks as far as being able to focus and concentrate on my writing, but at least he will know someone cares about him.

I’m writing a play for my support group gathering in Florida in October. Its my story, the names have not been changed. I narrowed it down to two acts, 10 scenes. I’ve gotten through the first two just this morning, so I’m hopeful that I will be able to do a substantial part of it this week….as long as the beauty outside does not become too alluring. Its warm and sunny today…..

My afternoon writing was extremely productive, finishing the first three scenes of the play, and picking songs for all of the other scenes. You are a good muse, Mickey, reading over my shoulder, correcting my spelling and my grammer, laughing in all the right places. When I told Jennifer about the Try To Remember CD she said to me, “Hold onto him, Betty. He may not be your forever lover, but he will surely be your forever friend. He’s a good one. Hold onto him.” I’m still voting for the former, so I think I’ll take her advice. Thanks for being my muse, Mickey. You are helping me do some good stuff. You are a valuable friend and ally, whether you sleep with me or not. 

I took a walk after finishing scene three, having forty five minutes before dinner and wanting to do alittle more exploring of the grounds of the convent. There are four primary buildings on the grounds; Knob’s Haven where we are staying and where others on retreats often stay; the Academy, which also houses retreaters, but mostly houses nuns who are active in their work at the convent; the Infirmary which houses ill and retired or infirmed nuns from all over the order; and the chapel. The buildings were all built before the turn of the century, and are incredibly well kept, well tended and maintained, as are the grounds and the gardens. I found the swimming pool and peered in at the three people enjoying the cool water, but chose not to swim myself today. I was drawn to the big red barn. Inside were dozens of huge rolls of hay, held together with yellow twine, and smelling oh so sweetly of my childhood. Next door was a cow barn where the cows are brought in for grain and hay rations. There was a huge pile of manure waiting to be spread across the fields. It smelled pungent and reminiscent of my uncle’s farm in Indiana. I liked it, even if it did smell like shit.  A wild barn cat kept an eye on me while I investigated her domain, running slightly ahead of me, convinced, I’m sure, that she was being followed. The gardens were off to the left of the barn and bore huge crops of zucchini, corn, butternut squash, pumpkins, watermelons, green beans, tomatoes, cantaloupe and cucumbers. The dirt is a reddish brown and seems to be fertile enough. The grass was a luxurious green carpet, freshly cut today. Off in the distance, cows bellowed their welcome and I surveyed the field. I couldn’t get close enough to touch them, but I wanted to.

Evening

The moon was still dark orange and low overhead when Charlotte, Carolyn, Rhonda and I headed for our evening stroll. I squealed when I saw it, it was such an unusual shade of orange, scaring the pants off of Charlotte, who clutched Carolyn in fear. I laughed and laughed, probably getting into trouble with the nuns, it being after 11:00 and long past their bedtimes. The moon reflected in the pond, creating a movie setting fit for Hollywood, complete with a duck having a bad hair day, a huge snapping turtle making all kinds of noise in the pond and the grass carp gliding carefully across the water, leaving a tiny wake to shimmer behind him. I listened to Rhonda’s and Carolyn’s stories on our evening stroll. We each have our share of heartache, I believe, our own childhood tragedies to recover from the rest of our lives. Rhonda is a graying blonde, around 50 years old, quiet, reserved, always late for meals and group meetings, with soft gentle eyes, a silent smile and certain sadness that leaves a wake behind her. She is married, has been for ten years and is still madly in love with her husband. She teaches Literature and Writing at a high school, has three dogs and a cat in lieu of children of her own. Her father was diagnosed with cancer when she was 12 and died from it when she was 16. She loved her father and was really pissed off at God when he died, and maybe hasn’t forgiven him yet. Carolyn comes from a family with lots of money, works part time for WWFAC just for something to do and to encourage her writing, has two sons and a daughter and one five year old granddaughter about whom she talks constantly. She has been divorced for 17 years, is happily living without a man in her life, has no interest in ever dating again, only hears from her ex when he needs money, of which she gives NONE to him. He was a pretty rotten husband and father, apparently, because none of her kids will have anything to do with him either. I gather that he had some issues with alcohol. At that point, we reached the end of the path, followed Rhonda’s flashlight back to the house and headed for bed.

Goodnight, Mickey. I hold you close as always and hope you are feeling better.

Dear Mickey, Part II

Tuesday, August 03, 2004

Morning

I woke up at 7:00am, as usual out here in the country, but stayed snuggled under the covers for another hour, dozing a bit, but mostly trying to remember what it was like waking up with you. I remember middle of the night sex (oh man, wasn’t that wonderful), I remember making out on the couch with you several times, I remember watching you peel away your clothes, but I don’t remember much about waking up with you. Maybe because, with the exception of that Friday we played hookey together, mornings always meant the end of my time with you, so I tried not to think about them. I remember watching you shave once, and listening to you in the shower, and I remember sending you off on vacation in May, but the waking up with you part seems to have escaped my memory.

I took a walk into town, it seems I forgot what time of the month it would be and came unprepared. I ended up with blisters on my heels, and had to walk back with my right foot only halfway inside my shoe. They are fine, now, I’ll wear sandals the rest of the day, but I’m not sure what I’ll do about exercise tomorrow. I came up with all kinds of ideas for my play, which I will work on next. I’m thinking about having a scene where Betty is dreaming about what life will be like after Rexford has moved out, and its based on Gone With the Wind scenes. I’ll let you read it, if you want, when I get back. I know you will give me honest reactions. I’m trying to make the play about a serious subject, but with enough comic relief to keep people interested, especially when most of them already know the ending.

Afternoon

I had a great small group session. I read scenes three, four and five to my group. You could have heard a pin drop while I was reading, so I think they found it interesting. They had great comments, too, like I need to develop Rexford’s character a bit more, need to show more of his personality. And they gave me suggestions for making a confusing bit clearer, but generally, great reception, great encouragement. The other writers had good stuff, so it felt good to be able to give good comments back to them, too. After small group, Rhonda and I explored this really cool creek that runs through the farm. It had tons of coral fossils, huge round stones millions of years old, when this part of the world was underwater. The creek was breathtakingly beautiful, with some deep pools active with small fish, and parts with smooth shale creekbottom. The water was clear and cool and I took off my shoes and went barefoot. I was leaning over to examine a rock and a huge bullfrog leaped into the water, landing a few inches from my leg. I let out a scream, not out of fear, but because it caught me off guard. I almost fell over into the creek, but caught myself just in time. Rhonda laughed and laughed, and would have laughed harder, I’m sure, if I had gone for a little swim. I saw lots of rocks that would have looked great around our fish pond, but decided that they weren’t mine to take. Two fossils made their way into my car, but they were more for educational purposes, rather than selfish, cosmetic ones, and I figured the nuns would support educational activities. I’m slowly getting to know each of the women here. I’ve spent a little time alone with each one, and heard just a bit of each woman’s story. Last night, we each had to put a word onto a card, and put the card into a basket. Then, our assignment for tonight was to write something about What We Carry, using the words. The words were Serene, Slinking, Solid, Echo, Love, Goody, Uneducated and Story. Here is my poem.

What I Carry

I carry three solid sons, entwined in my heart, encased in comfort in my home; they echo the resonance of life’s longing for itself, passed down from generation to generation.
I carry responsibility for livelihood, and not just mine, but those who work for me and for whose work I contract.
I carry a need, greater than myself, to expand, to create, to express, to proclaim, to profess, to tell a story to the educated, the uneducated, the sophisticated, the loved, the unloved.
I carry love, for music, for Mickey, they are one and the same.
I carry an inheritance for cooking, genetic I suppose, to prepare goody after goody for the fortunate few to dine at my table.
I carry passion, slinking deftly into my bed at night, disturbing my slumber, leaving me aching and awake when the memories become too real; unleashing itself in the serene gardens surrounding my home, the outlet that belays the fire in my loins.

Wednesday, August 04, 2004

Morning

I am sad today. Sad for being weak and calling you yesterday, sad because you didn’t call me back, sad because on days like this the message that we are only to be friends grows deafening. Sad that on days like this, I think of it as “only friends” as if friends aren’t the most precious thing one can have. I think of Jennifer and how she has enriched my life, and feel guilty for not addressing this letter to her. I smack myself because were I to have a friendship with you as genuine and real and devoted as my friendship with her, how could I not be happy with that? Yet, I sit here with tears streaming down my face because I acknowledge that that isn’t enough. I want sex. I want it bad. I want it with only you. I want it now. I fear that my disappointment of not getting it will dampen the friendship and it will dissolve into just another memory of a man who got away. Occasionally, I think of this new guy, Bob, who is handsome and sweet and genuine, but 99% of the time, my thoughts turn to you, when they aren’t focused on my writing, the other women in the group and the beauty that surrounds this convent.

I walked slowly today, my workout shoes having rubbed my heels raw with blisters over the last two days’ power walks into town. I have blisters all over my feet. A couple left over from last Thursday’s marathon fish pond building session, a couple from my sojourns into town and a couple reactivated from all the walking I did in California. I walked over to the barn, having heard the cows mooing as I drank my morning coffee. There were thirty or so, and they nervously backed away when I approached, but I stood still by the fence, smiling, murmuring softly to them, and soon they cautiously, curiously, carefully, took tiny steps closer. First one, then the rest. Constantly watchful, thoughtfully chewing their cud and guarding their young, they checked me out, sometimes mooing an all’s clear, signaling the rest of the herd that it was ok to move closer. Most of the cows were all black, a few of them had splashes of white, as if they had gotten in the way of paint flying out of a can. One of them was all white. Blondie, I called her. She wanted nothing to do with me, and kept up a constant vigil, warning the others away from me. Apparently, she did that often, because all of the other cows ignored her, succumbing to curiosity, lured by the sweet softness of my voice.

An old, gravel road lead out of the barnyard, and I followed it, until it split into one well traveled, and one less traveled. Guess which one I chose? I took the road less traveled, saving the other for tomorrow, and it has made all the difference. Lol. It lead me through a soybean field and a field of clover to a beautiful, glassy lake. The lake was clear and clean and had a cedar path all the way around it (I know it was cedar because I picked up a handful and smelled it!). As I walked, frogs would leap high into the air, smacking into the water, warning their friends of incoming humans. I saw no fish, but still regretted not bringing my fishing pole as I’m sure that out in the middle were several hungry for those fat nightcrawlers plentiful in the pile by our fishpond. I walked slowly and deliberately, listening to the birds, smelling the sweet air, admiring the plethora of flowers gracing the edges and pathway of the pond. I headed back, feeling the need for the tip tap of the typewriter, and just as my thoughts were turning away from nature and back to my writing, I heard the sound of a baby coming from the grass. I stooped, brushing away the hay covering the direction of the sound. Something was making the same sounds a baby makes when it is nursing. Those soft, contented, wheezinglike sounds of a baby being exactly where it wants to be. I moved the hay around, put my ear to the ground, yes, I was in the right spot, the sound was coming from a little hole about an inch and a half in diameter. I sat back and waited. Surely it was a baby animal, but what sort of animal I could not discern. I waited for a bit, enjoying its serenade, the sounds were peaceful and contented and I was having a bad morning. Eventually, I put the hay back where it was, wished the little animal well, and headed back to my room. I still don’t know what it was, deciding not to investigate further as I didn’t want to disturb its home or upset its mother. But I felt better having stayed and listened.

Afternoon

I’ve now written seven scenes for my play, the last two were really hard. The first half of the play is about all the good stuff…the wedding, the babies, growing together, starting our own businesses…the second half of the play is the hard stuff, finding out, telling the kids, splitting up, getting divorced. I sit at my computer and cry as I type. I try to add humor wherever I can, but some parts of it just aren’t funny. After I finished scene seven, Anne and I took the afternoon off and went to the town of Bardstown. Anne is 61, she has a doctorate in something, I never did figure out what. She’s been divorced for 25 years, lives with a guy named Tom but doesn’t want to marry him, and pretended to gag when I suggested stopping at a library to check my email. Ordinarily, if I wanted to stop at the library to check my email, I would have insisted, but this time, I concurred. I’m writing really well right now, so nothing I would read in an email is likely to improve that. And there is lots I could read which would depress me and make it more difficult to write, so I passed on the library. Anything you or any of my other potential boyfriends may have sent me will just have to wait until Saturday afternoon.

Bardstown was interesting, like most quaint, small towns in rural America. Very few John Kerry bumper stickers, so our car was easy to find. We ate at this lovely Bosnian restaurant…I had Weiner Schnitzel, making sure that it was made with pork instead of veal. We went to a used book store…Anne was looking for Thomas Merton books, and I bought a pair of Reeboks at the Athletic Store, trying to find a cure for my blistered heals. We stopped at the Abbey of Gethsemane, where Thomas Merton was buried, and actually visited his grave. All this Catholicism is kinda suffocating. They really like suffering. I had to take the crucifix with the dying man off my wall because I was afraid it would give me nightmares. Everywhere I looked, there were Mary’s under bathtubs, half buried in the ground…one of the bathtubs still had the feet on it.

Evening

I am tired, too tired, too spent emotionally from writing two difficult scenes from my play, from wrestling with the decision to check my email, although empowered because I resisted the temptation…makes up just a little from my lapse yesterday of calling you. I will wish you well and leave with the tidbit that the cookbook you gave me is on my alter. I’ll tell you more about those tomorrow. I wondered about your tournament game tonight, wondered if it got rained out, wondered if you are once again, on the team of champions. I hope so.

Dear Mickey, Part III

Thursday, August 05, 2004

Morning

Raining today, I am postponing my walk until the sun comes out, or I get scene 8 finished, whichever comes first. I promised you that I would tell you about the alters we are making, and seeing as I have nothing to write to you about my walking adventures, I will tell you about the alters. The theme of our retreat, other than getting done any big writing projects that are dancing in our brains and souls, is What We Carry. We have done several variations on that theme this week, I shared one with you on Tuesday. We were instructed to bring one object which represents “home” (I brought one of the rocks from the fish pond, representing my contributions to beautifying my “home” and also representing the role I play as the “rock” in my family, with my co-workers, my clients, and most of my friends). We were also instructed to bring a minimum of six objects which represent “what we carry”, and we have all constructed alters to ourselves, arranging those objects in some meaningful way on a cloth, and now, we write about them and each other’s alters. I have a picture of my alter, and here is what I wrote about it.

Goddess

Some people wait to have sex until they know each other really well. Mickey and I are waiting to cook together, realizing that cooking together requires a much greater level of intimacy. The dance around the kitchen, the cleaning as you go, the careful monitoring of heat, the mixing together of solids and fluids, stirring, cooking none stop until its done, savoring the flavors afterwards. Mickey gave me this cookbook when he came back from visiting his father in Atlanta in early July. A Southern cookbook…Mickey is from Memphis and I am a Yankee, a country girl for sure, but still a Yankee. I consider that cookbook foreplay…

As an accountant, my brain requires a certain amount of symmetry. I am envious of those who can arrange artistically, but my stuff always ends up symmetrical. My music offsets Mickey’s cookbook, and the music, of course, is “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man o’ Mine”. Ok, so maybe he’s not mine, but still…

In the forefront is the gift I gave my clients last Christmas. A pen, symbolizing my writing habit that my work supports, a letter opener symbolizing my anticipation for opening the three or four emails I get from Mickey almost every day (see how strong I was yesterday?). The keychain, because I wear my damn heart on my sleeve and need some means of security for it. The golf ball symbolizes my belief that what goes around, comes around, and I am determined that what goes around from me is generosity…of heart, of thought, of finances, of tolerance. My Gifts from the Goddess represent my spiritual life, which surged into the forefront of importance for me when my world came crashing down around me in 2000. I have come to lean heavily on my spiritual base, trusting her to help me recreate happiness in my life. The candle represents the passion in my soul, of which I have been blessed/cursed with an abundance. The flowers are the outlet for that passion. Over the past four years, gardens have crept their way around the entire perimeter of my house and have flung themselves out to the edges of my yard, as well.

The doll is the daughter I never had, always yearned for, stopped hoping for nine years ago when my third son was born. The baseball mitt is my baby, Kevin, sweet and loving and adventurous. The video game is Greg, funny, charming, thoughtful. The tennis racket is Scott, intelligent, athletic, sensitive and kind. The napkin under it all is my naturally nurturing spirit, the one that writes because she has to, that can’t cut her own flowers because it seems so selfish, that loves her children and her friends and her world. The napkin matches my dishes, the wallpaper and the throw rugs gracing my kitchen floor.

Afternoon

I took a walk after lunch, walking briskly and with purpose, trying to rev up my heart, burn off some of this fine southern cooking I’ve been experiencing this week. I walked to the split in the road, and this time, I took the road most traveled, which lead down to the hermitages. The convent has seven of them, little cabins designed for people who need to spend some time alone, some to write, some for spiritual development, some for silent retreats. I took some pictures of a few of them. Just past the hermitages is another beautiful lake, clear and clean, with a statue of Joseph in the middle of it. Frogs splashed in it, turtles sunned and fished, nature was tranquil.

I came back to my room and had a message from Bob, you know, the new guy. Sigh. I guess I should pay more attention to him. I am very discouraged because I haven’t heard from you. I know you don’t check your messages much, but it has been over two days, and nothing from you. I can only guess that you don’t miss me, don’t think of me, even though it is Thursday. Friendship is a good thing, a very good thing, and I am resigning myself to the fact that friendship is what I must content myself with where you are concerned. It breaks my heart.

Nighttime

Oh, Mickey. Just after our social hour (around 10:30) four of us went outside to check out the stars. We went out to the graveyard and laid down on the pathway and stared up at the sky. I can’t describe it. Millions of stars, carpeting the inky blackness. It was so clear we could see the Milky Way. Not long after we got there, just when I was asking for one, a shooting star skidded across the sky, as big as the advertisement for Orion pictures. I was so excited, I hugged Charlotte. The other women had to hush me up, I was so excited. They were afraid I would wake up the dead nuns, I suppose. We laid there, laughing and talking and singing “Help Me Make It Through the Night” and “I Only Have Eyes For You” and saw about six more little ones, and then, just as we were talking about leaving, another big one streaked across the sky. I wished you were there. I wished your arms were around me, laying there on the ground, and that you had shared with me the magnificence of that night sky.

Friday, August 06, 2004

Morning

I just finished the play. It was gut wrenching. I sat here at my desk and cried for ten minutes after I wrote “The End”. It’s a relief to have it out there now, in the universe of my brain, ready for editing, ready for character enhancement, ready for writing stage directions, ready for polishing, but oh, it was so hard to write that last scene, the scene of our divorce and transition ceremony. I got up late this morning. I dreamed about you last night. I woke up right after the dream and giggled to myself because it felt as though I had just left you. It was a friendly dream, I remember lots of laughter, although I don’t know what we were laughing about. It was not a sexual dream, although you did show me your penis, and I remember thinking lascivious thoughts in the dream, but I didn’t do anything with it, only looked at it curiously. So, when I woke, I stayed in bed a bit and relished your visit. I got up, made my bed, as I have done every morning that I have been here. I padded downstairs with my walking gear, including my new birkies, which have proven to be EXCELLENT walking shoes, which don’t even bother the blisters on my heels which are already there. I got a cup of coffee, sat in a rocker for 20 minutes listening to the birds, planning my walk, thinking about writing scene 10, and feeling a sense of dread in finishing the play. Don’t know why, but I think that is common. I finished my coffee, put on my shoes, socks, a bandaid over the blister that opened yesterday, and set off. I visited everything today. We leave tomorrow, and I don’t think I’ll have time for a walk tomorrow, so I revisited everything I could today. I took a picture of the waterfall I talked about on Monday. I took a picture of the creek with the sun shimmering on it on the other side of the road. I took another picture of the bird sculpture (Protected Community) I took a picture of Aflac- the bad hair duck. I walked around Badin Pond, then headed toward the back ponds. I walked all the way around the Lake with the statue of Mary and took another road less traveled, through a woods and back to the most beautiful soybean field I think I’ve ever seen. I backtracked, then, getting mud all over my lovely new shoes and headed back to the Y in the road, took a picture of it, and walked down by the hermitages again. I explored the road all the way until it hit Highway 49, backtracked again, and took one last look at the lake with a statue of Joseph. These Catholics. They made the whole family famous! I came back, looked up at the sky by the barn, and low and behold, there was the moon, at least half of it anyway. I had to take a picture of it, too, and discovered that I had just taken my last picture. I want to take a close up of each woman that is here in my group, but I think I can use my digital camera for that.

Off to shower and get ready for lunch. They line dry their towels here and they are the sweetest smelling towels I’ve ever experienced. I look forward to showering just so I can bury my face in the towels. Oh, and each shower has a hand held shower…these nuns don’t fool me. I know what a hand held shower is best used for and its not for shampooing hair, let me tell you that much. They can be very friendly, if you know what I mean…innocent looking, no clean up necessary, nothing embarrassing to be found in your bedside drawer…oh yeah. Very friendly.

Afternoon

Our writing assignment for tomorrow’s closing session is to write about the quote we drew from a basket on the first day we arrived, and to write about the Tarot card we drew at the same time. We are to weave these two prompts together into our heads and write about What am I taking with me, what am I leaving behind and what is my heart’s desire. I drew The Fool. My quote is “May we turn our bodies generously in its light.”

I’m on my way, from misery to happiness today. Like the fool, I find myself on a precipice, stepping off, trusting myself, my wisdom, my humor, my friends, to support me through this journey into the unknown. I have been writing to Mickey every day, as you all know, but who I’m really writing to is myself. I talk about Mickey, what Mickey says, what Mickey gave me, what Mickey does, how wonderful Mickey is, but the fact of the matter is that I’ve not been writing to Mickey, I’ve not been talking about Mickey, I’ve been writing to and talking about myself. I am taking with me a reawakened sense of myself, of my own wonder and goodness and capability, of my own worth. I’m leaving behind the pining about something I can’t or shouldn’t have, realizing that what is, is, and what is not, is not, and no amount of wanting on my part is going to change that. What is, is that Betty is a wonderful and beautiful person and any man that I determined to be worthy of that company is one lucky man. What is NOT, is the intelligence of chasing after something that runs the other way. No amount of wanting on my part is going to make him change his direction. And I have to question the intelligence and judgment of a man who would run the other way. I am turning my body generously in the light of this new knowledge. I am patting myself on the back for the effort and hard work I put in this week, crafting this letter and crafting my play, and rediscovering the beauty and graciousness of how I handled Rexford’s coming out and our divorce. I read what I wrote, knowing that I have kept the words as true to the truth as my memory let me, and I know that what I did was a good thing. I am a good person. I deserve to be with a good person, and if that person turns out to be myself, then I will count myself lucky to be in such good company. My heart’s desire is to keep that elusive serenity and comfort with myself, to be happy with things as they are, to appreciate what I have, and to continue to do the good things that are intrinsic to my soul.

I am also taking with me the gifts I received from the seven of you. The gifts of words and encouragement. The gifts of rocks and geodes, bandaids and Advil, conversation and friendship...and laughter. The acceptance of Betty just as I am. Not one of you told me to dump Mickey. Not one of you told me it was a lost cause or gave me any advice at all. You listened. You nodded your understanding of my joy and my pain. You enthusiastically joined in my quest for a gem, for the gift that would turn the tide. You were all virtual strangers to me on Sunday. I leave on Saturday with seven new sisters.

I took a right, I took a right turn at yesterday. Uh huh, uh huh. I know that I don’t want for anything, its true. I have a joke to say and I’m sittin’ on top of the world. I’ll do my best to do the best I can. I’m on my way.


Nighttime

After our large circle, I read my entire play to the group. Wow. It was intense. They loved it, were very encouraging, gave me some really valuable suggestions. They want me to add the scene where I get angry and call Rexford a faggot. It only happened once. I left it out because I was so ashamed of it, but they said it would make my character more believable, would give solace to those women not as noble. So, I will. And I will add the other scenes they suggested, edit where they suggested. These are incredibly intelligent and talented women, most of them are English teachers. I take their encouragement and their suggestions very seriously.

After our social, six of us went out and laid under the stars in the graveyard again. Oh, Mickey, the stars were incredible. We drank tequila with salt and limes, passing the bottle between us, and laughed ourselves silly. The nuns will probably never invite us back because we couldn’t help it, we laughed so loud and so often. I kept asking God for a big one, meaning of course, a shooting star, but these dirty minded women kept gaffawing about something else entirely. Charlotte let out a rambunctious fart, clearing the surrounding county of any and all mosquitos. That was pretty funny, if you knew Charlotte. The good little Baptist girl who doesn’t drink, who doesn’t even eat bourbon fudge. Who sleeps on the couch for the past four years, but admits that her husband comes out to visit every once in awhile….although he does have a little one. I told the joke about Lazy Larry, and we figured out that she had been a clappin’ when she shoulda been a snappin’, so maybe she will remedy the situation when she gets home.

Home. I go home tomorrow. I know I won’t see you. Saturday is for Carol, and I know that. I don’t even hope to see you on Sunday as I’m sure you are taking Carol to see Mama Mia. That thought hurts more than I can describe. I have no idea when I will see you next, but I know one thing. I have a date with Bob on Thursday. And I’m looking forward to that.

"She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.

She let go of the fear. She let go of the judgments. She let go of the
confluence of opinions swarming around her head. She let go of the
committee of indecision within her. She let go of all the 'right'
reasons. Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just
let go.

She didn't ask anyone for advice. She didn't read a book on how to let
go... She didn't search the scriptures. She just let go. She let go
of all of the memories that held her back. She let go of all of the
anxiety that kept her from moving forward. She let go of the planning
and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.

She didn't promise to let go. She didn't journal about it. She didn't
write the projected date in her Day-Timer. She made no public
announcement and put no ad in the paper. She didn't check the weather
report or read her daily horoscope. She just let go.

She didn't analyze whether she should let go. She didn't call her
friends to discuss the matter. She didn't do a five-step Spiritual Mind
Treatment. She didn't call the prayer line. She didn't utter one word.
She just let go.

No one was around when it happened. There was no applause or
congratulations. No one thanked her or praised her. No one noticed a
thing. Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.

There was no effort. There was no struggle. It wasn't good and it
wasn't bad. It was what it was, and it is just that.

In the space of letting go, she let it all be. A small smile came over
her face. A light breeze blew through her. And the sun and the moon
shone forevermore."

Waiting

I consider myself a woman blessed with many virtues…patience is not one of them. I am strong and independent, gentle and kind, creative and nurturing…but patient? I hated teaching my children spelling words, hating listening to their halting attempts at learning to read. I always wanted to jump in and finish the sentences for them, hurry up, lets see how the story ends! Even at work, with adults, teaching newly hired accountants how to use the audit spreadsheet my firm developed, I have to pinch myself to keep from whisking the keyboard out of their hands and saying, “Now look, you just do it like this!” I was never meant to be a teacher, I simply don’t have the patience.

Despite my variety of virtues, I am beset by one major ailment, commonly striking women as they approach middle age, those with children, in particular, those trying to do it all….children, career…add finding a new mate into the mix and you have an especially chronic case. The ailment to which I refer is known as LFE syndrome. It is a devastating disease, causing anguish, knashing of teeth, embarrassment, depression, even to the point of missing events altogether if the condition gets out of hand. You see, I am Late For Everything. Everything. It doesn’t matter if I want to go or not. It doesn’t matter if it’s the dentist or a date with George Clooney. Ok, I’ve never been on a date with George Clooney, so I can’t honestly say that I would be late for that, but I’ve been late for dates to which I was really looking forward, so I probably would be.

I can have every intention of being on time. But things always happen. I get an important phone call right before I leave. My dog has to go out and I don’t want to come home to a mess. I have to finish this last email. I have to play one last game of Spider Solitaire. I can’t get my hair to lay right. My mascara is clumped and it will only take a second to fix it. My favorite song is playing and I have to hear the end of it.

I can be in the car with time to spare. But something always happens. I hit every stop light. I get in the wrong lane and there is an accident. I accidentally miss my exit. I turn the wrong way down a one way street. I get my jacket stuck in the door. I can’t find a parking space. I have no sense of direction and I get lost walking the two blocks from the parking garage to the building. It is impossible for me to be on time.

My therapist has other opinions about why I am late, and I am ALWAYS late for my appointments with her. She says it has to do with control, with lack of respect for authority, with passive aggressive behavior issues. She says it is my way of striking back at my father for the inordinate control he had over me as a child. She says I choose to be late. What does she know. Who would choose to be late? Who would choose to waste ten minutes when I am paying her by the hour? She doesn’t have my life, my children, my work schedule. She is an older woman with grown children and only a cat for a pet. A cat can’t make you late. A big rambunctious dog that loves to play fetch with your shoes can make you very late! I don’t know how many times I have been five minutes late for leaving, bent over tying my shoe and my dog pounces on the other shoe and goes tearing off into the family room with my shoe in his mouth, looking behind expectantly to make sure that I am hobbling after him, waving my arms, hollering for him to stop. He particularly likes the waving arms part.

I used to say that the only parts of my life that I would change were my weight and my being late. Ironically, I knew that those were things over which only I had control, and to change them would require changing me. Now, there are many things in my life that I would change, ok, only one. I would rather not sleep alone. But I’m happy with my weight and the way I look. I no longer beat myself up for being late to things, and I find that I’m not nearly as late, nearly as often, as I used to be. It could be because my children are older and no longer spit up on my blouse right before I’m ready to walk out the door. Or it could be that my spirit is calmer and I enjoy the moments more, rather than what’s at the end or just around the bend. But I will say this. When you are late, when you are the last one…at least you don’t have to wait.

Big Bad John

Now they never re-opened that worthless pit,
they just placed a marble stand in front of it.
These few words are written on that stand,
'At the bottom of this mine, lies one Hell of a man, Big John'

Johnny Cash

My Uncle John loved this song, and would sing it in his beautiful baritone along with Johnny Cash every time it came on the radio. Every little girl deserves a Big Bad John in their life. Big Bad John’s come in many different forms, some in the form of a daddy, some a friendly neighbor, some a big brother or irrepressible cousin. Mine came in the form of my father’s brother, John Thomas Winters.

He was two years older than my dad, stood 6’2” (maybe that’s why I like tall guys so much), had blue eyes constantly crinkled in good humor and mischief, blonde hair which he wore slicked back in a duck tail, with the requisite shock loosened and falling haphazardly into his eyes giving him the perfect playful rogue persona. He was a beautiful man and he knew it. He flirted shamelessly with all women, regardless of their age, or his age for that matter. I never questioned his devotion to my Aunt Joann, though, and I’m guessing no one else did either, because hints of indiscretion never surfaced as far as I knew.

Other than two years in the army, barely escaping the front lines of the Korean War (my cousin Rod was born just in time), my uncle was a union man working at a factory making tires. He would come home black with soot, and coughing a deep hacking cough. He hated being a factory worker, thought his appreciation for classical music and his lofty ideals made assembly line work way below his capability. And he was probably right. But with eight babies in eleven years, and no education beyond high school, there was little opportunity to remedy that situation, so he did what he had to do to put food on the table and found his little joys wherever he could.

Uncle John was a stark contrast to the brooding darkness of my father. Where Uncle John was the poster child for light hearted good humor and Grecian God good looks, my father was sitting alone in the dark, the glow of his cigarette the only visible sign of life, contemplating the site of the next attack on his machismo.

When I was really little, Uncle John would lift me up and touch my head to the ceiling while I squealed with delight. In return for these excursions into the upper stratosphere of his home, I would wrap my scrawny little arms around his left thigh and squeeze as hard as I could. There is no way that my Uncle John could ever grasp the extent of my little girl affection for him, but I made a grand attempt to show him.

I was the youngest of four girls and one boy and Uncle John had eight children of his own, four girls and four boys. I loved my cousins and they loved us. We are all still very close to this day. The most joyful days of my childhood, without exception, were the days spent in the company of my cousins at the home of my Aunt Joann and Uncle John. While we lived out in the country and had the Wabash River to entertain us, my cousins lived next to a lumber mill and a grain elevator, and lived in a tiny little town of about 500. We would play touch football, and kick the can, and make slingshots out of hickory sticks and rubber bands, shooting at flying grasshoppers and crickets. We would hunt for crawdads down by the Eel River and fry up the tails in lard over a campfire using a blackened cast iron skillet. I remember joyfully playing in the rain one Saturday with my girl cousins. There were three of them within a few years of me, and my sister was just two years older. We connected all of the rain puddles in the gravel road together, learning amazing lessons in gravity and civil engineering as we tried to get all of the puddles to flow together. I was exhilarated with a powerful sense of accomplishment until my father pulled up in our pea green station wagon I watched him walk menacingly towards us. He came up to me and grabbed me by the hair, shaking my head, “Betty Jeanne! Just look at your shoes!”

I had not had one single thought about my shoes the entire day. I looked down. They were wet and caked with mud. I hung my head. I slunk away and found a stick to get the bulk of the mud off of them, and Aunt Joann gave me a rag to get most of the rest of it, but they still looked hideous. Its not like I had other shoes and its not like I wouldn’t have gotten yelled at just as much if I had gone barefoot and gotten my foot cut by the sharp gravel in the driveway. I was screwed, any way you looked at it, but the exuberation and joyful freedom I felt that day lived with me for a long time afterwards.

I wish I could say that Uncle John intervened on my behalf, but it wasn’t like that. No one challenged my father, not even Uncle John. We were all afraid of his dark temper. What I got from Uncle John was an oasis, not deliverance. The storm was still out there for all of us.

My Uncle John escorted me down the aisle when I got married, just like he did for all four of his daughters and for one of my sisters as well. He didn’t give me away, I wasn’t his to give. I dressed him up in a black tuxedo with a bow tie and a cummerbund. He was so proud of the way he looked. Always a handsome man, the last few years had taken its toll, but in that tuxedo, he saw a glimpse of what he liked to think of himself. Dashing and sophisticated and handsome.

Uncle John died six months after Rexford and I separated. In the last few months of his life, I visited more frequently and sometimes, I would get up in the middle of the night and come downstairs to chat with Uncle John, who could only sleep fitfully for a few hours at a time. He had started to mumble about all sorts of things, but seemed to fixate on the issue of homosexuality, and the abomination that he thought it was, the havoc it wrought on my family, his concerns for my three boys. I consoled him. I assured him that I was fine, that I was perfectly capable of taking care of myself and my three boys, but he could not be convinced. Surely none of his “little mouse” ladies could get by without a man, and he worried for me.

The last weekend I visited him, I made up a story, telling him that my current boyfriend had finally convinced me to marry him and that I was looking forward to another wedding, although this time, I thought I would elope to Las Vegas. He laughed with delight, his eyes crinkling up in synch with his smile, wanting all the details. He died two days later.

I hope he forgives me for my fib.

I carry no guilt for that lie. It was a small price to pay, a small bit of comfort to offer the man who had made it possible for me to believe that somewhere out there in the world, there just might be another Big Bad John, only this time, one with my name on his heart.

Fishing

This morning, my brother, my nephew and Scott, Kevin and I went fishing. Greg opted to sleep in. The morning was crisp and cool, the fog having burned off shortly before we arrived. The pond was so clear, we could see the bass chasing the bluegills clear out to the middle of the pond. In one deep pool, we could see a three foot grass catfish trolling about without interest at all in what dangled at the end of our hooks. A turtle trundled across the pond to the delight of Scott and Kevin, its nose peaking a tiny wake across the water, stopping to sun itself on a log nearby.

We all caught fish, all bluegill, all too small to keep. After an hour and a half or so, the boys wandered off with Will to shoot BB guns, and I caught a small bluegill, reeling it in, when right in front of me, the pond a perfect viewing screen, I watched a big bass open his mouth, grab my fish, and snip off my hook, line and sinker. Now I know why they call them Large Mouth Bass! I squealed with delight, shaking in excitement. I could see two more larger bass swimming about four feet from the shore.

I quickly re-equipped my line, baited the hook, cast out as far as I could, caught another little bluegill, hooking him just inside his lip, and reeled him in. I checked the hook, making sure that the jagged part was on the outside, and I tossed him back in, still on my hook. I gave him some extra line and he swam about furiously before finally stopping to hide in some reeds. I slowly reeled him closer to the bass. He tried to swim away, but I kept him out in the open. One of the bass caught sight of him and swam slowly towards us, his tail swishing a slow rhythmic dance as he sauntered by, checking out the fish, turning sharply back, but the blue gill darted away. The bass passed by again, seeming to ignore my new friend, moving suddenly again, but the blue gill was again too quick. This was fascinating to watch and I was really excited and hopeful that I could actually catch one of these big bass, but on the third turn, the bass (I swear to God) looked up, saw me standing there grinning like a fool, and said, "Fuck, that bitch is trying to catch me!" and swam off, leaving my poor little bluegill dazed and confused.

I threw him back in two or three more times, and the bass would appear to be interested for a minute or two, but I think they were just teasing me. I finally gave up, unhooked my bluegill bait and set him free, at which point, he swam under a rock and didn't budge again, as far as I could tell.

Garrison Keillor

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

“Scott, Garrison Keillor is performing with the Cincinnati Pops at Riverbend on Saturday. Wanna go with me?”

“Garrison Keillor….he’s that Lake Wobegon guy?”

“Yeah. That’s him.”

“Um, let me get back to you, ok Mom?”

“Ok, but I need to know soon so I can buy tickets.”

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

“Scott, what did you decide about Garrison Keillor?”

“Will you be mad if I say no?”

“No, I won’t be mad. I’ll be disappointed, I think it would be a great opportunity for us to do something together, just the two of us, but I won’t be mad.”

“Oh, ok, if you’re gonna get all sad if I don’t go, I’ll go.” He slumps in his chair.

Thursday, July 21, 2005

“Scott, I haven’t bought the tickets yet. Seriously, if you don’t want to go you don’t have to. I won’t be upset, I promise.”

“No, I want to go. Really. Get the tickets.”

Friday, July 22, 2005

“Mom, you sure you don’t have someone else you’d rather go with to see Garrison Keillor? Like, Jennifer? Couldn’t you take Jennifer?”

“Scott, I already bought the tickets. Jennifer can’t go. And sweetheart, there is NO ONE I’d rather go with than you.”

Scott sighs. “Ok. How long is this going to take? I mean, will we be home by 10:00?”

“Probably not by 10:00, maybe by 11:00. Would you like to go to dinner before hand? Your choice.”

“Ok, sure. Whatever.”

Saturday, July 23, 2005

“Scott, you need to be home by 5:00. We should be at Riverbend no later than 7:30, and we want to get dinner first.”

“Yeah, Mom. You sure I have to go?”

“Scott…”

“Kidding, Mom.”

We arrived at Riverbend at 7:15. It was a clear, hot and humid Cincinnati evening. I was wearing a sleeveless sun dress and wondered if I was going to be a feast for the river mosquito’s. As its name suggests, Riverbend, an outdoor concert venue seating over 18,000 people, including those on blankets on the lawn, is located at a bend in the Ohio River, flanked by Coney Island, one of Cincinnati’s oldest amusement parks and one of the largest swimming pools, and by River Downs, a noted horse racing establishment.

At the last minute, I had decided to splurge and get pavilion seats, discovering that because Scott is a high school student, he only cost me $12. I scanned the crowd as they were coming in, wondering what sort of people would be fans of Prairie Home Companion in Cincinnati, Ohio, a bastion of conservative Republicans. Low and behold, three rows ahead of us was a couple from our church….and over there, the parents of one of Scott’s friends, and seated in the exact same row as us, Mickey and his girlfriend, Carol.

Very funny, God, I’m thinking to myself as I see them walking towards us, getting closer, heading down the row, settling themselves about 15 seats away from where I’m sitting. An amphitheatre seating 18,000 people, and you have to put me within earshot of a man who broke my heart, and the woman who won his heart.

As the show opened and Garrison came out, I could hear Mickey hooting his appreciation. Garrison started with a bunch of jokes, and Mickey’s distinct laugh floated over those fifteen seats and tickled the inside of my ear. Instead of seething in envy, I smiled in agreement. I loved the sound of his laugh, loud and boisterous and full bodied, very much like mine. He sounded happy and joyful. What more can you ask for someone you love than to hear them laugh as though they mean it? It was musical.

I harmonized with my own.

Garrison was…he was captivating. He crooned to us, he scolded us, he sang so low I was afraid he would cause an earth quake, yet his tenor voice never wavered in clarity. He sang old songs we all knew, even let us sing along with a couple songs, some of which he parodied to fit with Cincinnati and the Ohio River.

After the intermission, he told his Lake Wobegon story, weaving a story starting with a young boy grudgingly toiling in the garden on a hot summer day, being awarded the ultimate gift of a heavily ripened tomato and the bent over backside of an older sister, a temptation no 12 year old boy could resist…perhaps one that no boy of any age could resist. He segued into the refuge of his maiden aunt, a figure that every child should be blessed with…the unconditional love and acceptance of an adult other than his parent. He wove a story about acceptance and judgment and the unknowing affect of a loving adult on a small child, and the lifetime of memories that such opportunities create. He hypnotized us with his story, as only Garrison Keillor can. That 18,000 seat amphitheatre was so quiet, I could hear the crickets harmonizing with the symphony.

I thought of my Uncle John, of the oasis his arms held for my bony little girl body, and how he used to tell me I was a “beautiful, little mouse” in a way that actually made me believe him. He was the daddy I always longed for. Garrison wove that story on purpose, to make all of the children inside of us think of the one person that made a difference in our lives, that made the unbearable, bearable, that reminded us that kindness to a child is rarely forgotten, and remains long after we have gone.

“So what did you think, Scott?” I inquired as we walked to the car.

“It sokay.” He shrugged. “I mean, I’m glad I came.”

I nodded, pleased to even get that out of him.

He dialed the phone. “John, guess what. You ever hear of Garrison Keillor? Guess who I just saw! Yeah, my mom took me!”

Mockingbirds

Mockingbirds mate for life. I have watched a pair of them in the pine trees outside of the gym where I go daily to gather strength. They followed me from Florida, the first place that I ever saw a mockingbird, or at least, knew that I saw one. The pair lived right outside my lover’s apartment. They would sing cantatas to us when we ventured outside, various songs of known and unknown origin. My lover was quite knowledgeable about mockingbirds, and though I had read To Kill a Mockingbird when I was a young girl, I had never seen one, thinking that they must only live in the south. I enjoyed those mockingbirds, stopping every time we went out to the car to listen in silence to their varied repertoire and to breathe deeply the scent of the jasmine that grew prolifically on the privacy fence by the driveway. If I close my eyes, I can still smell them. Once, just when I was just getting into the rental car to head to the airport, my lover plucked a sprig of the scented white flower and presented it to me. A gift of love, a gift of pleasure, a sweet memory to tuck into my purse, to ignite my senses when I returned to the Midwest and to remind me of what waited for me in sunny Florida. My lover is a kind man, a good man, a man of honor and purpose. He calls himself a true vulgarian due to his proclivity for telling off color jokes and for enjoying the sounds of his body. He has a memory for movie lines like no one I have ever known, and a tenderness of heart unrivaled by any of the men of my past.

Soon after the end of the affair, I noticed the mockingbird pair, singing in the pine trees, preening for my pleasure each time I ascended the stairs to the gym. I went home and looked up mockingbirds on the internet, amazed that they were also native to my homeland. I talked to them each morning, and they talked back. They would disappear for a few days, and reappear, just as I would disappear when the time demands of my busy life would win the arguments against my exercise regimen. It was never more than a few days, maybe a week around the holidays, but I always came back, and so did they. During the early days, when the pain was pervasive and my spirit was weak, I would ask them to tell my lover of my devotion, and maybe they did. As I healed, my requests trickled away, but they didn’t seem to notice.

I went to the gym a week ago, stopping to admire the male mockingbird sitting on the top branch of the pine tree. I walked closer and noticed a pile of feathers on the ground. No body, no broken wings, just a pile of feathers. I shielded my eyes from the sun and peered up into the tree. No female, just the male. A solemn male. Not a peep out of him. He sat regally on the top branch, but was silent. I am hoping that mockingbirds molt their feathers in the spring. I am hoping that the male was silent because the female was busily making their nest in the interior branches of the pine tree. I’m hoping that he was not singing because he didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that he was goofing off while she worked away. I am hoping that a cat had not discovered my mockingbirds, because you know? Mockingbirds mate for life. And that gives me hope.

Jokes

Two caterpillars were on the ground watching a butterfly. The first caterpillar said to the other caterpillar, “You’ll never get me up in one of those things.”

Did you hear about the new Playboy magazine that’s come out just for married men? It’s the same as the other magazine except the centerfold is always the same…

Why are single women usually thinner than married women?

Single women come home, look in the fridge, then go to bed.
Married women come home, look in the bed, then go to the fridge…

Did you hear about the new cereal out call Prostitooties?
Instead of going Snap, Crackle, Pop…they just lay there and let you eat ‘em…

How do you force a Unitarian family to move out of town?
Burn a question mark in their lawn!

After the Super Bowl 2004, President Bush called the Patriots to congratulate them on their victory and Al Gore called the Panthers to say he thought they'd been robbed, and Bill Clinton called Janet Jackson.

Mrs. Bush is opposed to same-sex marriage. She’s been trying to get George to do something different for years.

There was a contentious staff meeting at the White House about the health of Dick Cheney. Bush interrupted and said, "Men do not have anginas." He was upset because someone had said Cheney had acute angina.

Did you hear a guy was murdered in town last night? Police found the victim face down in his bathtub, which was filled with milk, cornflakes, and sugar. They think it was a cereal killer.

What’s large, gray, and doesn’t matter?
An irrelephant.

The man who wrote the Hokey-Pokey died peacefully at age 93. The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into his coffin. They put his left leg in. Then the trouble started.

A blonde was bragging about her knowledge of state capitals. She proudly says, "Go ahead, ask me, I know all of them."
A friend says, "O.K., Wisconsin?"
The blonde replies, "Oh, that's easy, W."

There's a new bumper sticker that says "Run, Hillary, Run." The Democrats put it on their back bumper, and Republicans put it on their front bumper.

The accountant couldn’t get to sleep so she tried counting sheep but then she made a mistake and it took her all night to find it.

My friend is engaged in a major custody battle. His wife doesn't want him and his mother won't take him back.

A man took a Viagra and it got stuck in his throat and now he has a stiff neck.

My thanks to Garrison Keillor and Prairie Home Companion’s joke show. I will see him perform live at RiverBend this evening. More on that tomorrow.

As I think of other good ones, I’ll update this, so check back! I am going to a major league poker party with some of my biggest clients next Saturday, so if you have any jokes that a progressive liberal could use to upset her conservative clients, I’d greatly appreciate them. :-)

Poetry

Things That Never Die

The pure, the bright, the beautiful
That stirred our hearts in youth,
The impulses to wordless prayer,
The streams of love and truth,
The longing after something lost,
The spirit’s yearning cry,
The striving after better hopes,
These things can never die.

The timid hand stretched forth to aid
A brother in his need,
A kindly word in grief’s dark hour
That proves a friend indeed,
The plea when justice threatens high,
The sorrow of a contrite heart,
These things shall never die,
Shall never die.

Let nothing pass, for every hand
Must find some work to do,
Lose not a chance to waken love;
Be firm and just and true,
So shall a light that cannot fade
Beam on thee from on high,
And angelic voices say to thee
These things can never die.

By Charles Dickens


The Word Of My Mom

My Mothers words are soft,

But a gentle breeze,

And when she decides to yell,

All feel the gentle beast,

The status of my mom,

Could be referred to as saint,

But you can just call her Betty,

To her it’s all the same,

My mom’s not about titles,

Or judging book covers,

She’s more about love,

This is the word of my mother,

The words that she speaks,

Turn into writings without flaw,

I feel sorry for those,

Who’ve not heard the word of my mom

By: Your loved and loving son,
Greg Waite
February 14, 2005

Pain

I feel everything around me pine away,
I force the pain into a place it cannot stay.

My wounded soul is stabbed so deeply,
I wish I had something to help release me.

Depression is a place where my soul refuses to rest,
But it is a place that seems to unknowingly fit best.

I cannot help but attempt to find solace,
For other’s comforts have not yet consoled it.

My anguish finds no answers in condemnation,
But my mind is in no state for salvation.

My euphoric state has long since past,
My soul questions whether the pain will last.

By Scott Waite
February 2005

Ocean of My Life

My life is an ocean
with waves of tears
and spaces of glassy calm.

My happiness radiates,
evaporates
and fuels the cloudy storms.

The salty sorrow of my tears
rains down with deep delight
Replenishing, renewing
the ocean of my life.

The pain is stark, searing my heart
I stumble on my path.
Eviscerates, capitulates
And then, in time, does pass.

By Elizabeth Waite, August 2003

Happiness

Coming from school with your homework done
Living a life that is free and fun
Seeing a robin feed food to her young,
Is happiness.

Making new friends and flying a kite
Getting it up when the wind’s just right
Going out of your way to avoid a fight,
Is happiness.

Watching a swan swim alone on a lake
Doing a speech with no mistakes
Riding a bike with the wind in your face,
Is happiness.

Giving an old lady your hand to lend
Receiving a card someone you love did send
Falling in love that has no end,
Is happiness.

By Betty Jeanne Winters (that’s me) 7th grade
November 1971

Political Blog

I rarely write about politics on my blog. Its not that I don’t care, or pay attention, because I do. I read the political articles posted on the internet every day. My blood boils and stirs just like any other person who has an opinion. I don’t write about my political persuasions much, though, probably because my muse doesn’t send me messages promoting that path. Today, I’ve decided to send my thoughts out into cyber space, just to get them off my chest.

I don’t like our President. I didn’t like his father, either. I didn’t like Ronald Reagan or Gerald Ford. In the eight grade, I liked Richard Nixon. My family liked Richard Nixon, so…I liked Richard Nixon. Jimmy Carter was President when I was in high school, and my first class as a political science major at Manchester College was taught by Jerry Tucker, head of Jimmy Carter’s presidential campaign for Northern California. I converted almost immediately and have never looked back.

There have been a few Republicans I have voted for, or would have voted for had they run for an office I could have voted for. I like John McCain, I like Elizabeth Dole, I like Colin Powell. A few local elections had female Republicans against male Democrats, and if both are against abortion, I’ll vote for the female, usually. My family is still staunchly Republican and shake their head sadly at my bumper stickers, but they love me anyway.

Many of my clients are staunch Republicans as well, who pay for their mortgages through the government assistance provided to house low income people…much of which would not exist, if the Republicans had a monopoly on decision making power, and much of which has dramatically eroded over the past five years. I shake my head sadly at my clients, but I still love them anyway.

I am in the definite minority at my office, by the way, and we rarely discuss politics at our staff meetings. I encouraged them to see Fahrenheit 9/11, in exchange for which I offered to watch Fox News for a week, but they all politely smiled and looked away, quickly changing the subject to scheduling conflicts and computer issues.

I remember a conversation I had with one of my staff just as we were invading Iraq. I expressed a concern that there were no WMD, that GWB was just interested in uninterrupted supplies of petroleum products. She looked at me sadly and said, “Oh, Betty, tell me you’re not really that naïve. We are simply putting down a bully before he really hurts somebody. It has nothing to do with oil.”

Huh. Naïve.

Of course, there’s the Osama Bin Ladin and Saddam Hussein connection, the link between Iraq and the War on Terror. Seems funny that they were so tight, but we caught Saddam within weeks and Bin Ladin is still at large, four years later. If they were so close, wouldn’t Bin Ladin have said, “Psst! Saddam! Over here! They’ll never find us here!” Because…well, we haven’t! I find it suspicious that the justification for the war was to avenge the 9/11 attacks and to protect the world (US in particular) from Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction…but there is no link between Saddam and Osama, and…there are no weapons of mass destruction. Makes me think there must have been some other reason they aren’t telling us. Or maybe I’m just naïve.

I don’t like the Good Ol’ Boy network crap that has gone on between Enron, Halliburton, Cheney and all the other hunters hiding out in Washington. Gives me a bad taste in my mouth. My profession, which up until Enron, was one of the most trusted professions to be in, has taking a beating. Used to be, when I said I was a CPA, people trusted me more easily. I can’t tell you how many times I used to wonder if I should put a cup on my desk, hang a sign over my desk that said, THE DOCTOR IS IN, and charge an extra nickel for every time a client told me about problems completely unrelated to numbers. Problems with parents, problems with spouses, with children, with co-workers, with childhoods. It happened a lot. Not so much anymore. People don’t trust CPA’s like they used to. Maybe I’m just naïve.

I’m hoping the Enron folks get just as bad a beating as the World Com folks did. I thought the 25 year sentence was just. I hope that GWB isn’t able to pull the political strings to ease the Ken Lays of the world through the justice system unscathed. Wish we could just send all those corporate bastards to the front lines of the Iraqi War, so that more of our innocent soldiers could come back home.

All of this pales in comparison to what I really don’t like about GWB. Those of you who like him won’t understand this part, because those who agree with a dictator have nothing to fear. His War on Terror scares me, more than any airplane crashing into a skyscraper. His intrusion into our private lives, into our private meetings, into our daily activities scares me. I wonder if something bad will happen just because I wrote this blog. I never felt that when his father was President, and I was much more active politically then. It is those of us who dare to dissent that have cause for alarm, because our rights and abilities to do that are eroding quicker than the hillsides of Los Angeles when I was there in February.

I was at the grocery store with Kevin and we saw a newspaper with GWB’s picture and Kevin said, “I hate George W. Bush, Mom. I think he’s an ass.” I pulled him to me and looked quickly around, to see if anyone had heard him. Its true that we talk about GWB at our dinner table. Its true that Kevin and his brothers have adopted my opinions on the subject (proof positive that kids learn prejudice from their parents more than their peers). For the first time in my life though, I wondered how free my right was to express those thoughts.

GWB has held fewer press conferences than any other president in history. He limits attendance at his press conferences to those who do not criticize his decisions, or demand answers to difficult questions. He rarely speaks off the cuff, his recitations well rehearsed. His stifling of pictures of soldiers killed in Iraq makes me quiver in anger. If its not about the sacrifice of these soldiers, then its hardly worth fighting for. If the cause is so damn just, then let those families be proud of what they have given. The people of this country have a right to know the cost of this war, because we are the ones paying for it. In my heart, the cost is measured most assuredly not by the ca ching of the cash register, but by the lives lost. They just better never darken my door asking for my sons.

I don’t care what grades GWB made in college. I couldn’t care less if he got drunk when he was in college, or even if he knocked up an entire dormitory of debutantes. I care about what he does now, as our President. I care about what damage he does to the economy with this never ending pursuit of some testosterone soaked conquest. I care about the erosions in personal liberty that gape widely and foolishly at all of us who dare to open our mouths in opposition.

Of course, maybe I’m just naïve.

Happy Endings

Sunlight streamed into Betty’s bedroom, casting vibrant rainbows dancing across the ceiling, reflections from the prism dangling from a fishline draped over the curtain rod. She opened her eyes and sighed in satisfaction. Rolling over, she snuggled up close to the man lying next to her in the bed, her bare breasts firmly planted against him. She kissed his back, breathing in his scent, running her hand across his buttocks, down his muscular thigh. He stirred, seeming to be coming out of a deep slumber, but in a stealthily swift and smooth move, Betty found herself lying on her back, a masculine voice murmuring a gravelly greeting. She giggled her delight.

An hour later, she padded into the kitchen. She loved Saturday mornings. She pulled the skillet from the cabinet next to the stove, taking eggs, milk, cheese, bread, butter from the refrigerator. Working in smooth, precise movements, she cracked the eggs, whipped in the milk, added salt and pepper, the skillet warming with just a touch of butter to ease the Silverstone nonstick surface. Bread in the toaster, coffee brewing, she turned on the stereo, flipping through her standard stations, finally deciding to see what was in the CD player. She pushed the button and smiled. “Let me fall in love before the spring comes…” a melancholy man crooned through the speakers, the first song on the CD Betty had made for the man lying in her bed. He still played that CD on a fairly regular basis. Not typical of the music he picked for himself, he betrayed his sentimental side with each turn of the spindle now playing.

The toaster popped a greeting and Betty carefully plied the bread with a slight coating of real butter, getting two plates out of the cupboard, forks, coffee cups. Grating some sharp cheddar cheese, she did a final turn of the scrambled eggs and sprinkled the top, covering the skillet for a few minutes to let the cheese melt. A simple breakfast, eggs and toast, some coffee, a few strawberries.

As she waited for the cheese to melt, she thought about the man who would share her meal. For ten years now, she had been waking up next to him. A few more wrinkles, her boys now off on their own, the transition from writing as a hobby to writing for real. She had published a novel every six months since she met him, and she made enough from those books to do the traveling they enjoyed so much and to ensure that her boys went to good schools and had a little nest egg to get them started in life. Her novels were not wildly successful, but she had a loyal following that purchased her books faithfully.

The path leading her to the man in the next room had been bumpy to say the least. After five years of being single, after dozens of first dates, dozens of first kisses, she had pretty much resigned herself to her single mom status and was just beginning to actually enjoy her lot in life. There were three men in her life at that time. Three men who were important to her growth, pivotal to the ultimate outcome of her life’s journey. Figuring out what the universe intended for her had not been easy. She had spent many hours searching for answers on the bench by her fish pond, sometimes in the company of the men of whom she spoke, but mostly with only the company of a cup of coffee and the chatter of the universe around her.

Three men, who spoke to her in such different ways. Brett was tall and sultry, without even trying to be. He had a sadness within him that evoked such stirrings in Betty’s heart that her longing for him surged like milk in her breasts when her babies were three days old. She wanted to make it better for him, to soothe his pain with the solace of her bubbling inner joy, but life just doesn’t work like that. He was so different from her, from any man for whom she had ever been attracted. Politically, polar opposites. Introvert to her extrovert, guarded to her wide open door. Spiritually, they seemed to also diverge, but when push came to shove, they believed in the same goodness, the same fundamental way of being, the same desire to do the right thing. Hypocrites, they neither were. And when he kissed her, her knees got weak. The literary part of her liked the alliteration of their names together, too. Brett and Betty. Same number of letters, only one letter different, actually. When his company had transferred him back to Detroit, she had sobbed into her pillow, and for many months, their communication had been limited to the stories each of them told on their blogs and an occasional conversation on the phone or the internet.

Michael was another story entirely. Thin and wiry, with the energy of a perpetually happy puppy, he evoked laughter and lightheartedness like no one she had ever met. How could anyone not be happy around Michael? But he was the epitome of elusive. She could not make plans with him of any kind, he did not return phone calls or emails, appearing out of the blue for spontaneous fun, molding memories in her heart that would have to last for weeks on end. She had pined over him for a year and a half, finally falling for another man before he came to his senses, came to realize how much he had assumed that she would always be there for him, finally realizing that he needed her as much as she needed him. Her heart had soared when he had finally spoken those three words she had waited so long to hear. Soared…and sank at the same time. His timing had not been good.

Marcus had come into her life at the perfect time, for the perfect reasons. He was so well matched for her, sharing her political and spiritual persuasions, parenting three girls, the perfect complement to her three boys. He was educated and savvy, and smitten with Betty from the start. He didn’t hide it, didn’t deny it, didn’t run from it, didn’t avoid it. They shared a common history of spousal backgrounds as well, giving them a connection right from the start that transcended the initial fumblings of newfound romance. After dating for a year and a half, after sharing the graduation of her son, and his graduation from law school, they were moving towards something more permanent when the phone rang that fateful day. Actually, it rang twice.

She arranged the toast on the plates, placing the cheese covered eggs on top of the toast, balancing plates and coffee cups on a tray, before calling behind her, “Lets eat by the fish pond this morning!”

She sat by the pond waiting for him, her thoughts still hovering ten years past. She heard the door slam and looked up at his smiling face as he dropped a kiss on the top of her head before folding himself next to her on the bench. Her heart skipped at beat, as it always did when catching the sight of him. His arm grazed her breast as he reached for his plate and the blood rushed to improbable places, seeing as she had just made love with him a half an hour before.

This is how it was meant to be. The silent bond, grown taut and strong and steady over the past ten years. Their evenings and weekends spent in the pleasant company of each other. She smiled her thanks to the universe.

Author's note: Don't anybody get their panties in a wad over this. This was a writing exercise, purely and simply. I wanted to test out my cliffhanger ending skills, because I'm hoping to finish my novel soon and I am considering something like this, with maybe an epilogue which reveals the ending. These characters resemble real people, but in no way reflect conjecture of events on my part. I needed to pick three characters which were widely diverse, but who brought unique gifts to the table. Brett brought a confluence of nurture and nature, powerful forces in and of themselves, Michael brought light heartedness, of which Betty had had far too little in her life, Marcus brought unconditional acceptance and full disclosure thereof, which Betty had never experienced before. All valuable gifts, but what was most lacking in Betty's life would ultimately make the decision for her. Excuse me for using my own name, but when I write, I am always the main character.

At The Old Ball Game, Preface

I wrote this story last fall with the help of my good friend, Mickey, with whom I was madly in love at the time and wanting desperately to please. He loves baseball, as have almost all of the men who have captured my attention over the past couple years. Most of the plot is his idea. He fed me ideas, I came up with the words. Having just read The DaVinci Code helped some, too.

This was my first attempt at fiction. After writing this story, the divine pleasure of getting to decide the ending hasn't wavered.

The story has clues for solving the riddle sprinkled throughout. I would love to know who solved the riddle before they got to the end of the story. Mysteries aren't really my thing, I tend to write romance more often, but who knows where my muse will lead me.

At The Old Ball Game, Part I

A lone figure sat halfway up Section 232, third seat from the aisle. Smoke curled lazily from someplace under the dark brim of his hat. His face shadowed, his body hunched warily, as it to ward off unseen attacks, the only thing visible was the bright blue of his eyes, scanning the field. It was early morning. A hazy fog drifted over the newly cut grass of this classic baseball field. Roustabouts could be heard clanking about with their tools, murmuring greetings, beginnings of the last day of work for six months. Later that evening, the lights above would be smoky with excitement. Crowds of people would stamp their feet in anticipation on the worn concrete, beer would be spilled, hot dogs dropped, peanut shells scattered under crunching feet. Tonight was pivotal. The seventh game of the World Series…the World Series the world never expected to see. The Cubs, underdogs for the last century, a array of faithful fans spanning the globe, fighting for their first World Series victory in ninety six years, against the Yankees, defenders of the title they have held for four of the past eight years. No one expected it to go this far. No one anticipated the three upsets the Cubs pulled out of their hat, each game down to the wire, each game going multiple extra innings, each game won by a fluke of nature, an unnatural occurrence, each game won by one run.

This was the last game. The winner would take it all home tonight. No replays, no rematches, no reruns, no do overs, this was it. A total of eight players from the two teams will be retiring after tonight’s game, ending careers spanning a total of 151 years. Expectations were high.

Halfway up Section 232, the figure rose, tossed his cigar under the NO SMOKING sign, leaving it to smolder. Slowly, and with effort, he maneuvered the steps, his raincoat billowing behind him as the winds of October caught the tails. His lips curled into a smile. Tonight was pivotal. Expectations were high.


Bernie burst into the luxury box. “Bill, come quick, there’s been a robbery! Up in your office! It’s gone! You gotta come now!”

Bill eyed the scoreboard, panic bubbling up in his throat. Top of the seventh inning, his team was behind three runs. Now was not a good time. His eyes narrowed. He headed for his office.

Opening the door, he heard the mess before he saw it. Shattered glass tinkled under his feet. In dismay, he surveyed the damage. “Call the police!” he barked. Bernie bustled backwards out the door. Bill walked gingerly over to the case. A familiar bat lay on the floor. A note fluttered lightly down from the top shelf of the case, landing on Bill’s left shoe. He picked it up, scanning quickly.

Just after six, the hotel closes, and it’s a long road back to home.

Scrawled haphazardly across the white notebook paper, Bill thought he recognized the handwriting. A riddle. Other owners had received these riddles, other owners had solved them. So carefully had they guarded the secret that was now in the hands of this unknown assailant. So carefully had they hidden the parchment that would bring the game of baseball to its knees….the true identity of the inventor of baseball, documented in a letter, undisputable proof of its origins. Were that parchment to fall into the wrong hands, a multibillion dollar industry would be blown away….or would it? Bill had no way to know how the public would react should the contents of the parchment become public record, no way to know how it would impact his team, but he knew it wouldn’t be good. It would change things, and change was rarely good, at least not at this magnitude.

Now it was his turn. He needed to do two things….solve the riddle….and find out who was behind this carnage so that he could stop this jokester, once and for all. He didn’t have much time.



Arriving at his hotel room, after stewing about his problem on the ride from the baseball stadium, he knew he had to tell the others. But first, he needed the calming voice of his wife, home with their three children. He dialed the phone.

“Hello?”

“Hi sweetheart. Are you busy?”

“No, just doing my exercises before I climb into bed.”

He imagined her as she probably looked right now, hair tousled, face flushed, dressed in her leotard and tights. His wife was a ballet dancer before she married him and every night, before bed, much to his delight, she donned her traditional garb and stretched her body, legs raising up above her head, back arching, arms reaching. He felt his jeans tighten around his groin.

“Damn. I’m sorry to miss that.”

She laughed huskily. “I’m sorry, too. But you’ll be home tomorrow. I’ve saved some special stretches just for you.”

His jeans were immediately quite uncomfortable. After twenty five years, she still had the same effect on him.

“Listen babydoll, I can’t talk right now, I just needed to hear your voice and to tell you I love you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

That riddle was so right. It was, indeed, a long road back to home.


The beginnings of this story stretch back well over a hundred years. Bill pondered this topic as he drove back to the stadium the next morning. He thought about the parchment that had been stolen, the parchment that told the real story, the story of Abner Doubleday….and his wife. He considered his own marital situation, his beautiful wife, secure in her own career, and he wondered about marriage in the 1840’s, how the reality of baseball’s origins came to be. He wondered how many other historic acts, other inventions or theorems or formulas were initiated, originated and birthed, in the same way as the game of baseball. As the parchment would reveal, the game of baseball was not invented by Abner Doubleday at all. It was invented by his wife….and their three daughters. It turns out, throwing like a girl was how the game was meant to be played.



The parchment, violently stolen from Bill’s trophy case which held his Babe Ruth baseball, his Mickey Mantle baseball card, his Hank Aaron bat, his Johnny Bench catcher’s mitt, was a letter from Mary Doubleday to her husband, dated September 7th, 1840. She was writing to him while he was away fulfilling his duties as a General in the army. From their summer home on Martha’s Vineyard, she described, in detail, the game she and her daughters and their friends had been playing all summer. She lyrically described how the game had evolved, from one of the daughters, Beth, accidentally hitting an apple from a low lying branch with a stick lying on the ground sending it flying into the air. After Beth did it, all the girls wanted to send apples flying through the air, but the mom’s objected, wanting to save the apples for pie and sauce and the like. So the girls started picking up the apples that had fallen and tossing them to each other to be hit and sent soaring through the sky. The girls were taking turns throwing the apples when one of the Doubleday daughters, Rose, inadvertently caught a hit apple, stinging her hands. She hollered “OUCH”, which was later translated to OUT. This actually happened more than once and soon, the girls were trying to catch apples that had been hit, but were discovering that hit apples, especially the ones that had been on the ground awhile made quite a mess. Their mothers were not happy, and the mother of Betsy, one of the Doubleday’s friends had forbade her daughter from playing the game, not having a large enough staff to keep up with the laundry being generated by the girl’s activities. On one occasion, Beth caught an apple, sent it soaring to Betsy, beaning her in the back. There was apple everywhere. Beth shouted “Can’t run home now!” and thus the game began.

Delighted with the sensation of the apple flying through the air and catching it, the girls were saddened when the supply of apples dwindled. Mary Doubleday, spotting one of her toddler’s balls on the floor, suggested that they use the rubber ball, which stung the girls’ hands even more. Beth discovered that if she was wearing her white cotton gloves, the ball didn’t sting as much when she caught it. Throughout the summer, they played with the ball, the three Doubleday daughters and the two girls living next door. As they played, other girls in the neighborhood came to watch, and eventually join in the fun.

They would play from sun up to sun down, stopping every couple hours to dance in the ocean spray to cool off and to sip lemonade provided dutifully by Mary Doubleday. They would use that time to stretch and sing and be silly before resuming the strenuous activities of their newly found favorite pastime. Thus was born the seventh inning stretch. They wore bonnets to keep the sun off their faces, and they wore gloves to catch the balls. They added the thrill of racing to a tree after the ball was hit. Mary Doubleday was delighted with the game, officiating, refining, writing down the rules as the girls came up with them. In typical girl fashion, the rules quickly became precise and detailed. You get three tries to hit the ball. The pitcher gets four tries to throw a good pitch. That was a compromise, the result of a huge discussion between the girls because some thought all details should be divisible by three, there being three Doubleday daughters, and a rebel friend who said that everything divisible by three would be infinitely boring, that variety was the spice of life and some things should be random. The terminology came from that summer on the island as well. They initially used their mother’s plates for bases, hence…home plate. Home was where you were safe, so home plate became the safe place. There were girls, after all, and home was nearest and dearest to their hearts. And as they had very early in their lives realized, one could be safe in any of their friends’ homes as well, thus one was safe as long as one was on base. Fouls were defined when a rotten apple, a particularly smelly rotten apple, was hit awry and caught Rose Doubleday in the chest, where the smell was inescapable. “Oh, that one is particularly foul!” she exclaimed in dismay…and it stuck; not just the apple, but the term for a ball hit awry. The word strike came into the game as a result of one of the friends of the Doubleday daughters accidentally witnessing a man strike his wife at the market. She determined that being struck without the ability to defend was certainly the most humiliating of events, and thus, the strike out became the most humiliating of events in baseball. All of these events, as they occurred, were written down and documented by Mary Doubleday in her daily letters to her beloved husband, Abner Doubleday.

At The Old Ballgame, Part II

Taft sat on a stool in the dimly lit On Deck Circle Bar and Grill in the lobby of his hotel, the Long Shot Inn. In the corner, a disk jockey sat, spinning CD’s, trying desperately to help the patrons of the bar recall their lost youth. On the dance floor, a couple in their late thirties gyrated frantically to the fast lyrics of “Oh Mickey, you’re so fine, you’re so fine you blow my mind. Hey Mickey! Hey Mickey!” Bill sipped his favorite vodka, Svent’s Cherning in the T, a Russian brand, of course, but a new Russian brand, coming out of the new Russia only in the last five years. Bill discovered it by accident when one of his wife’s ballet friends, from Russia of course, brought a bottle as a hostess gift to a dinner party they had. He liked it straight up, on the rocks, with a twist of lime. The fire in his throat paled to the fire in his heart when he thought about the dilemma facing him.

The riddle! He had to solve the riddle! A riddle no doubt but it was no joke to him. He was waiting for the other owners to show up, to offer their assistance, to come up with a plan to permanently end the problem. The other owners had burned their parchments, all letters from Mary to Abner, all pieces of the puzzle documenting the origin of baseball, letters showing the thought process, the piecing together of the rules, the experiments with distance between bases, with height of the pitcher’s mound, with foul lines and strike zones. Ironically, the foul lines had come out of the same heated discussion about strikes and fouls….to keep it from being infinitely boring, the girls decided that the foul lines would stretch to infinity. Mary had done it all with the precision and meticulousness of a Swiss watch. It was her game, there was no escaping the conclusion. This parchment of his, this letter from his great, great, great grandmother to his great, great, great grandfather was the last link, the last evidence of her greatness.

His stomach knotted, thinking of his wife and of his daughter. He had not been able to bring himself to destroy the parchment in the past. He was a believer in giving credit where credit was due. He would be furious, outraged, if he discovered that a son-in-law of his had taken credit for work, hard work and creativity that his daughter had done. How could he allow the same crime to be perpetuated against his great, great, great grandmother, a woman he felt he had come to know and love through her beautifully written letters. It just seemed wrong. But it was also wrong to have the secret forced from his hand. He had always meant to someday, before he died, someday, to give Mary Doubleday the credit she deserved. He had hoped to one day, give that honor to his youngest daughter, when she took over ownership of his baseball team. If the riddle was not solved, the problem would be wrested from his hands. If he lost the team, if baseball as they knew it changed forever, what good would any of this come to? His obligation to his daughter was paramount, and he would solve this problem.

Just after six, the hotel closes, and it’s a long road back to home.

He needed help with this problem and he knew it. He called his wife again.

“Hello?”

“Hi Honey. Listen, I need to talk to you about something. The parchment has been stolen.”

“Oh, Jeez, Bill. I know how important that parchment is…to you, to us, to the entire world of baseball.”

“There’s a riddle, of course, but I’m mostly concerned about finding this guy, and about damage control if I don’t.”

“What’s the riddle? Bill, the guy has never followed through on his threats before, as long as the riddle is solved. He must have some kind of quirky sense of honor, or is just a 10 year old boy who never grew up or something. Come on, let me help solve the riddle.”

“Ok. The riddle is… Just after six, the hotel closes, and it’s a long road back to home.”

“Hmmm. Just after six…six fifteen, six ten? Is that related to a jersey number or batting average or RBI or something like that?”

“I don’t know, I’m having trouble focusing on the riddle. Did you see the headlines? Did you watch the news last night? Joe Morgan said, on ESPN, in Newsworthy Notes, “issues nag games”. That was also the headline in the newspaper this morning. What world series doesn’t have issues that nag the games? Why all this attention this year?”

“the hotel closes….what could this mean? What hotel? The one the players stay at? The Berkshire Inn?”

“I don’t know what it means, honey.”

“and it’s a long road back to home…home base, is he talking about home base? or home is where the heart is? Or is he actually referring to the road, the long road….like those roads through the Indiana cornfields, they stretch for miles and miles!”

“I appreciate any help you can give me, sweetheart, but really, I just wanted to hear your voice. Talking with you never fails to calm my spirit, helps me focus. The others will be here shortly, I’m sure we will put this baby to rest once and for all.”

“Ok, Bill. I’m looking forward to holding you when you get home.”

Bill closed his cell phone reluctantly, looking around the bar. He spotted three of the four other owners as they crossed the threshold. He rose, shaking out the anxiety in his hands, smiling tentatively as he extended his hand to his colleagues.

Jack O'Gorman staggered in, still smelling like a whisky bottle, "Strike the ruse! Exalt! Truth completes her".

"Cut the babble fat man. Your words say much but our duty is to preserve tradition, is it not?" Bill had no patience for this man. "Will someone get him a cup of coffee?"

He eyed the others. “Grant, Teddy, Jack, Michael…good to see you. Thanks for joining me. Your drinks are on their way, I know what you all like, although I think you guys would love Svent’s Cherning in the T vodka, which is, of course, what I’m drinking.”

“What are you, advertising for them now?” Grant Saylors, bantered good naturedly.

“Yeah, right, in the midst of all this, now I’m into advertising, too.”

“Listen, Bill, we’ve got good news.” Teddy Reisant solemnly clapped Bill on the shoulder.

“Doesn’t sound like good news.”

“It is. We’ve got the parchment…and we’ve got the jokester.” The room quieted. Everyone looked at their feet, shuffling nervously.

“You what? My God! Why didn’t someone call me? I’ve been worrying myself sick about this! Who?! Who would do such a thing? Where is the parchment?! Did you solve the riddle?”
The bar was bustling. In the back, the bartender’s blender whirred with excitement. A waitress came to clear the table of empty glasses, but Harry Carrey waved her away. Leaning close, he spoke quietly. “It was Pete Rose, Bill. Pete stole the parchment. Seems he needed some quick cash. And by selling the letter and exposing baseball's feminine origins, he could embarrass and get-back at those keeping him out of the hall of fame....and the game. No one would believe him otherwise. He had to steal it during the seventh game, after the seventh inning, fascinated as he is with the number seven. It’s the gambling thing of his. Everything he does is related to or divisible by seven. His jersey number was fourteen, hell, he even retired after 4,256 hits because it was divisible by seven. And it was at seven this morning that our guys picked him up in Vegas, trying to sell the parchment to a millionaire collector of baseball memorabilia. The riddle was just his punk way of teasing us. You know what they say….live by the seven, die by the seven….theoretically speaking of course. Pete’s ok, you know we wouldn’t hurt him….”

Bill sank into a chair, breathing heavily. His sense of relief was immense, no doubt, but he also had this nagging sense of anticlimactic disappointment. The secret was still safe. But, it was still a secret. “Should it be a secret?”, he wondered to himself. Is this really the result he was hoping for, in his heart of hearts? He looked down at the parchment he held in his hands. His eyes fell to the final paragraph, the definitive words of Mary Doubleday to her husband, Abner.

“As you well know, Abner, my obligations as your wife preclude me from acting outside of your wishes, but I wish to express my dismay at your willingness to snatch this game from the hands of your wife and daughter. Is this the lesson you want to teach them, to not take credit where credit is due, to allow someone else to usurp their rightful place as owners of ideas? If you must present this game to your peers and to the public as a game designed by and for boys, then I will abide by my duty as your wife to support that decision. I believe it is a sacrilege to both me and our three lovely daughters. It is not as I would have it. I love you, Abner, but I concede to your wishes not out of love for you, but for love of the game.”

“What’s next, Bill?” queried Jack, still stumbling in his stupor.

Bill looked up and smiled. “I know exactly what’s next, fellas. This game ain’t over yet. You guys get to work on solving that damn riddle!”

At The Old Ballgame, Part III

Bill walked in the door of his Winnetka mansion, shaking the rain from his umbrella, wiping his feet on the mat. He ruefully smiled to himself thinking that if the world knew how frightened the owner of the Chicago Cubs was of incurring the wrath of their housekeeper, he would lose all credibility on the negotiating field. He looked up into the face of Elizabeth, his own eyes mirroring back to him, his own smile reflected in hers. He lovingly pulled his youngest daughter into his arms. She was now a mature twenty one year old, but for a fleeting moment, as he breathed in the scent of her hair, she was seven again, full of youthful exuberance, ponytail sticking out of her baseball cap as she excitedly recapped the afternoon’s baseball antics.

She was the only one of his three daughters that inherited his passion for baseball, the one who always insisted on accompanying him to the games, to the practices, to the scouting expeditions. She was the only one who played the game all the way through college, taking her team to the national championship twice. She was the one who would inherit his team.

“Elizabeth, you are just the person I wanted to see.”

“Don’t you want to see Mom?! She has been pacing the floor waiting for you to come home all day. I’ll go get her.”

“Ok, Bill conceded, She needs to be in on this, too.”

Elizabeth glided across the floor. The grace of a ballerina, the competitiveness of a boy, the cheerful disposition of a perpetually happy child, he was grateful for his daughter. Claire entered the room, crossing quickly to her husband and wrapping her arms tightly around his shoulders.

“Welcome home, sweetheart,” she murmured into his ear. The three of them sat down.

“Claire, I’ve decided to leave it up to Elizabeth.”

Claire smiled knowingly. “I thought you would.”

Bill extracted a long white envelope from his suit coat. “Elizabeth, I need you to read this, and I need to hear your thoughts on what we should do about the contents of this parchment. I plan to leave the team to you someday, so the decision you make will have a direct effect on you and on your inheritance.”

Elizabeth accepted the envelope, looking quizzically at her mother and father, seated together, hands clasped. She extracted the faded, stained, yellowed parchment and read carefully. Her hand flew to her mouth in amazement. Bill started to speak, but Elizabeth held up her hand to stop him, her eyes never leaving the parchment, moving quickly across the page. She breathed deeply, hand on her chest as she finally raised her eyes to her father. Tears prickled her eyelids and slid silently down her face.

“It was his wife, my great, great, great, great grandmother. It wasn’t General Doubleday after all. It was his wife and his daughters. I inherited this love of baseball from her!”

Bill and Claire nodded in unison, both starting to speak at once.

“We’ve always wanted to tell you” Bill started

“Especially since you inherited such talent for the sport” finished Claire.

“You know I would never let you” Bill started

“Make such a sacrifice for a man, no matter how much you loved him” finished Claire.

“It is your decision” Bill started

“What we do with this information” finished Claire.

“What do you mean, do with this information?” Elizabeth countered.

“It doesn’t have to stay a secret. If you want, we can set the record straight, we can end the controversy, we can give Mary Doubleday the credit that society would not allow her to have all those years ago.” Bill studied his daughter intently. All three of his daughters were strong, independent women, like their mother. All three of them had accomplishments in their own right, were capable and loving and stood on their own regard. Feminists, yes, but the best kind. Confident in their talents, they acknowledged also the unique strengths of the men in their lives, assertive without being aggressive, loving without being lazy.

Elizabeth smiled at the parchment, tracing the lines with her finger. “Are there other letters?” she asked.

“There were. They are gone now. They were burned by the other owners to keep the secret safe. This is the only one left.”

“I don’t want to burn this one. I want to keep it, to treasure it. What did the other’s say?”

“I have a tape of Claire reading them. I insisted on saving the words, even if I conceded that the other owners had the right to eliminate the evidence. She was my great, great, great grandmother, too, just like the other owners. You may listen to the tape, if you want. She was a beautiful soul.”

“Dad. The game of baseball is a man’s game. It has been since it became popular, it is now, it probably always will be. I was an anomaly growing up, loving the sport, actually having a talent for it. But its still a man’s game. What use would it be to change that now? What use would it be to turn it into a controversy? I don’t want to play with people’s passions. I love that men love this game like I do. I love that I share something integral to my soul with so many other people…and I’m not sorry that so many of those people are men. A part of me longs to share the secret and the potential to open the hearts of women to baseball, but I don’t think that is going to happen in my lifetime. We shall save the parchment, but we shall keep the secret as well. Perhaps one day the world will be ready, but I don’t think now is the time. But how wonderful to have this knowledge, this secret, this tidbit of information that I can twinkle in my eye when I talk to my guy friends. I will enjoy knowing what I know.”

Elizabeth hugged her dad, holding tightly, whispering her thanks as she left. Claire wiped her eyes, standing arm in arm with her husband as the taillights of Claire’s car blinked a final farewell. As they walked back into the house, Claire turned her face up to Bill’s and kissed him soundly.

“Did you figure out the riddle?”

“No! But I’ve got the guys working on it. I should check in with them.”

“Don’t bother. I figured it out.”

“You did! You figured it out?? What’s the answer??”

“Oh, not so easy, big boy. I’ll help you, but you’ve got to get to the answer on your own.”

Bill laughed. “Of course, what was I thinking. Ok, help me out.”

“What was the riddle again?”

“Just after six, the hotel closes, and it’s a long road back to home.”

“What is just after six?”

“Six, oh one?”

“Not the clock, the number!”

“Just after six…seven?”

“Correct. What is another name for hotel?”

“Motel?”

“Try again. What was the name of your hotel?”

“The Long Shot Inn….an inn? Inn is another name for hotel?”

“Correctomundo. You’re getting there, hot shot. And what do you call a long piece of road?”

“A mile?”

Claire laughed. “Come on, Bill, use your imagination….try this…what do I do every evening for your amusement and entertainment? “ She smiled suggestively.

“You stretch. You stretch your arms and your legs and your back…mmmmm.” He nuzzled her neck.

“There you have it. Put them together.”

“Seven. Inn. Stretch…..Seventh Inning Stretch! That’s it!” Bill laughed delightedly. He was always impressed with Claire’s ability to integrate her precisely logical intellect with an uncanny intuition.

Claire’s brow furrowed. “Why do you think he used that riddle? Do you think the answer had any significance, or it was just a random term?”

Bill scratched his chin thoughtfully. “I know what it means, the bastard. That was the only time that he could have gotten into my office, the only time that one of my staff would not have been in there, the only time the parchment was not physically being watched over. That explains it. Never a dull moment in baseball.”

Claire sighed. “Indeed. As Red Smith said, “Baseball is only dull to dull minds” or something like that. Lets go to bed. My work is done…and yours is just beginning….”

The End.

Moments

There are moments in every mother’s life, when she feels her heart soar with pride, when the milk rushes into her breasts, even if her child is 15 years old. I have had such moments, and when they happen, I say a silent prayer of consolation for those mothers not lucky enough to have my particular boys as their sons. And then, there are the other times…

“Mom, can you give me a ride to work today?”

“Sure Greg, what time to do you need to leave?”

“Around 11:30 or so. I’ll need a ride home, too, can you pick me up around 4:30?”

“Maybe.”

“What do you mean, maybe, can you pick me up or not?”

I look at my kid. His brown hair is hanging in his eyes, over his ears, his jean shorts are barely hanging onto his butt, a fuzzy stubble graces his chin, giving him an eerie familiarity, someone I used to know. I try to remember who he reminds me of…then it hits me…Shaggy in Scoobie Doo.

“You gonna cut your hair before you go to court for that traffic ticket, Greg?”

“Hell, no! I’m not cutting my hair! I like my hair like this.”

I silently survey him again and shrug my shoulders.

“How about a belt, then, Greg. Aren’t you worried your pants will fall down?”

“No Mom. My pants are not going to fall down. My pants have never fallen down. There’s a secret to wearing these pants and them falling down is simply never going to happen.”

I sigh the mother’s sigh of resignation. He’s fifteen years old. Its his hair, his clothes, his underwear exposed.

“Yeah, ok, I can pick you up from work today. How’s come you don’t want to ride your bike?”

“My muscles are sore. Cameron and I went to the gym yesterday.”

I smile to myself. Greg has been grounded for a week because of the traffic thing. He has been the epitome of good grace. I don’t think I’ve ever grounded him before, he just doesn’t do much out of line. Once we figured out his consequence, he made his case for a lighter sentence, and then accepted my decision with no further questions. He has not asked to go anywhere, to have anyone over, to reduce his sentence. Yesterday, he called me from work and asked if his week was over yesterday or today, and when I said today, he accepted it. He has gone only to work and to the gym for a week. And he has dutifully been working on his summer reading. What a great kid.

We drove to Greg’s summer job as a lifeguard at the swimming pool. We arrived at 11:45, the pool opens at 1:00, but there was already a crowd of about 50 people milling about, finishing swim lessons and getting ready for the general session to start. Greg got out of the car, his arms full of sunscreen, towel, his ever present cd player and headset. He turned towards the pool and the impossible happened.

His shorts fell down around his knees.

He showed the world his red and blue plaid boxers.

I see London, I see France,
I see my son’s underpants.

I have waited half my mom of teenage boy life for that to happen.

I tried hard not to laugh. I didn’t say a word. Greg calmly reached down, pulled them up, and turned to me.

“Really Mom, this never happens.”

“If you say so.”

“You think I should wear a belt, don’t you.”

“Who me? Did I say that?”

He laughed. “You might be right. There’s always that first time.”

He headed for the pool, oblivious to the people watching the show, oblivious to my knowing smirk, oblivious to everything other than the fact that he was a marvelous person and he was a fifteen year old boy with the world’s greatest teenage boy job and after work, he got his freedom back.

What could possibly be better than that?

Ten Dates

My best friend, Robert, and I have been spending a lot of time together, which is always wonderful and heart warming. We have been planting bushes together, going to movies, going to dinner…and discussing our love lives at great length. Robert almost always has a girlfriend. He is oh so sweet, is good looking, has a way about him that makes the woman he’s with think that she is the most important, most beautiful woman in the world. Its definitely a good quality to have if you are a man. Robert’s current girlfriend is very cool, loves kids, shares enough of Robert’s passions to be interesting…but she doesn’t seem to like the idea of him spending time with me.

I don’t blame her. I think much too lasciviously to be around any man who’s heart belongs to someone else.

She doesn’t have anything to worry about. Robert and I think way too highly of each other to ever consummate the physical aspect of our relationship.

You believe that?

Me, neither.

Truth be told, its true.

Because Robert has found a woman to be close to, our conversations often are centered around my love life, or rather, my dating life. I don’t have a love life. That’s the whole problem.

I go on lots of first dates, as I’ve said here before. My weekends are usually booked well in advance. Over the last two weeks, I have tried to slow down. Really, I have. I’ve been using the old Nancy Reagan line…Just Say NO. I only went on one date last week, and it wasn’t really a date, it was an outing and dinner with an old friend. Ok, it was a guy I used to be in love with, but it wasn’t a date, there was no intention to build towards anything other than what it was at that moment; an opportunity to spend time with someone who makes me laugh…and sometimes makes me think.

Like my outings with Robert.

This weekend is going to be rather busy. I have dates already scheduled for Friday, Saturday and Sunday…and all of those men read my blog. One of the dates is a second date, although I’ve been talking with him on the phone almost daily since our last date…two months ago. The Saturday and Sunday dates are first dates, but they seem to be really cool guys. The only reason I said yes is because the guys were just too interesting, had too much in common with me, to say no. I want to meet them, to get to know them.

Robert is concerned about my inability to find a guy that I want to go out with for more that just the requisite three dates to figure out if there is anything further to talk about. He is thinking that I should decide, after the first date, whether or not I could go out on the following ten dates with the guy, and then commit to doing it before going out with anyone else.

1) Dinner
2) Movie
3) Concert or play
4) Dancing/Karaoke
5) Sporting event
6) Movie snuggled up at home
7) Making dinner together
8) Two hours sitting by the fish pond talking effortlessly
9) Digging in the dirt together/home project
10) Wonderful sex

I’m thinking he might be on to something. I am so very tired of first dates. I want fifth dates. And even more than that, I want 10th dates…

Instead of thinking in the big picture, is this my soul mate kind of scary thinking, its more of a one day at a time thing. The pressure of finding a mate is erased and the question is simply, would I like to invest the time to do these ten things with this one person, and then see what happens. I'm usually jumping the gun, putting the cart before the horse, and then either finding the fatal flaw that puts the guy out of his misery and out of my life or scaring him screaming into the night.

So what happens if, after this weekend, I decide that I think I could have all ten dates with all three of the men I accompany this weekend? I am more than able to serial date…until the relationship gets physical, then I am most definitely a one man woman.

What’s a forty something single woman to do?

I’ll keep you posted.

Longing

I am reading “The Mermaid Chair” by Sue Monk Kidd, the author of “The Secret Life of Bees”, one of my favorite books. On the opening page of “The Mermaid Chair” is a quote, which made me suck in my breath when I read it.

“Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere.
They’re in each other all along.”
-Rumi

Is that really how it is? Is there someone out there that I am inside of already? That is already inside of me?

I have met a couple people in my life that I have felt an instant connection to, something strong and wild and vibrant that made me feel so very alive. I have to admit, it doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, it usually happens almost instantly, the minute our eyes meet, and the connection stays no matter how much time or distance gets put between us. The last time, the connection was stronger on my end, hence the solitary times on the bench by the pond.

On the rare occasion that the connection clicks for me, I celebrate it, even if it is not reciprocal. How wonderful to feel the rush of passion, the electricity, the feeling that every molecule of your body is alive and alert and aware. The intertwining of life between two people who connect at a variety of levels, even if just for a few hours, is more than most people ever experience. I count myself lucky, looking forward to the next time it happens, not at all bitter if the object of my affections, for whatever reason, chooses to disregard the connection. I understand fear, even if I choose to ignore it. I am trusting the universe that I will feel that connection again, and if it must be with a different person, so be it.

I will say, sometimes the connection occurs with people one would never expect, with people of different religions, different political beliefs, different cultures or colors or countries. Sometimes, opposites attract and that attraction can explode in fireworks of such beautiful hues, it will take your breath away…and leave you breathless for weeks to come.

It is indeed, better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. My compassion goes out most profusely not to those who have experienced loss, who have suffered hardships, who have physical limitations or mental incapacities, but instead, to those who allow the gifts that the universe sets before them to sink slowly into the waning light of the past.

Bada Boom

When I bought my house 19 years ago, the front yard was dotted with old trees, not the least of which was a Sycamore tree which was over 150 years old. Add a couple of elms, a huge Dogwood, and a box elder, and very little sunshine actually made its way to the grass. Over the past 19 years, all but the box elder have bit the dust, and I have replaced all those trees with different varieties. I have a maple tree, a pistachio tree, a Bradford pear, two yellow woods, a cotton wood, a magnolia, and a very young dogwood. The back yard is all hickory trees, with huge, tall, straight trunks, stretching 30 feet into the sky before the leaves start, then stretching another 30 feet, trying to touch the clouds.

Keeping an eye on all the activity in my yard, are two lovely trees in my neighbor’s yard, a birch tree and a beech tree. Those two trees have lived side by side of each other for many years prior to when I moved in. One day, a sapling emerged between the two trees.

The birch tree said to the beech tree, “Is that a son of a beech or a son of a birch?”

“I don’t know”, said the beech tree, “Lets ask the woodpecker if he knows. He’s an expert on trees.”

The birch tree called over to the woodpecker, “Mr. Woodpecker, would you be so kind as to tell us if this sapling is a son of a beech or a son of birch?”

The woodpecker flew over, happy to oblige. He hopped up onto the sapling, took a bite and said, “It is neither a son of a beech nor a son of a birch, but it’s the best piece of ash I’ve ever put my pecker in.”

Bada boom

Pollinating

One week out of the month, for this forty something divorcee, I really miss sex. Don’t get me wrong, the rest of the month, I miss all the other stuff, the intimacy, the sharing of meals, the making of the bed together, the cuddling in the evening, but one week out of the month, I really miss sex. I don’t remember this being a issue when I was younger, perhaps because I thought about sex all the time and one week didn’t stand out, or perhaps because for the seventeen years that I was with Jeff, sex was so very available that I never had to miss it, or maybe because as a woman in her forties, my hormonal levels are changing and I am now at my sexual peak.

The hostas surrounding my fishpond are in full bloom. Long stems emerged from within the variegated foliage, compact buds at their ends. Those buds swelled and elongated, bell shaped flowers erupting from the slender stems. I sat with my coffee this morning and watched the bumblebees visiting the various blossoms. The bees would move from blossom to blossom, their legs yellow and full with pollen, wiggling their chubby bodies down to the base of the bell, drinking the nectar then pulling out and moving on to the next flower.

I watched those bees and I could only think one thought.

Those bees are performing cunnilingus on those flowers.

Suddenly, I wished I was a flower.

Where the hell did that come from?

Oh yeah, the week following my period.

Thank God I only have a few days left.

Seems a shame. Seems a waste. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I could have sex. Its readily available. I think I can honestly say, with one notable exception, that any guy I’ve gone out with in 2005 would have been available for sex. Of course, there’s a catch. These guys were available for the no strings attached sex, for which I’ve never developed a taste…although those flowers sure didn’t seem to mind.

I had dinner with a guy last night…third date. The third date is a pivotal date, its usually when I decide whether or not sex is ever going to be an option. Before the third date, its simply not an option. During the third date, I usually decide whether to move forward or move on.

I’ve mostly moved on.

Last night was really interesting. We had both concluded, after the second date, that we were looking for different things from each other, and when people are looking for different things, someone usually gets hurt. He was still newly single, looking to pollinate a bunch of flowers, I was more into one bee, one flower…drink all the nectar you want, I can always make more.

We talked about sex all evening, a frank, open, honest discussion of what its like to be a guy and what its like to be a girl, in our forties, single after multiple years of being married. We agreed on a conclusion. The girl gets to decide when to involve the penis. The guy gets to decide when to involve the heart. In essence, we answered the age old question. Which comes first, the penis or the heart.

Well, we all know which comes first…

For women (and I know I am speaking in generalizations here) the heart is almost always involved before the penis. For guys, well its pretty obvious who leads who….or what leads what.

So I kissed the guy goodnight, standing by my car. Chastely kissed him. I stood back and looked him in the eye, cocked my head to one side, and just looked at him.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing.” I answered. I put my hand on his chest, felt the strength underneath, rubbed across his shirt, over to his muscular arms. I wrapped my other arm around his neck and kissed him again. Softer, more gently, I lingered a moment longer than the first time.

And then I got in my car and drove home.

Damn those bees this morning.

Best Friends

My parents divorced when I sixteen and we moved from a suburb of Chicago to a small town in Indiana. I was very happy that my parents were splitting up, as my father was a mean sonofabitch, but I was devastated to leave my friends in McHenry, Illinois. I was a popular girl in high school; my boyfriend was captain of the football team and a starter on the basketball team. My best friend was Candy Massheimer, a cute little blonde with big boobs and a big smile. Lots of guys hung around us, the sassy brunette with the curves and demure blonde with the boobs. Socially, it was adolescent heaven.

Winchester High School was not so kind. Most of the kids had lived there their entire lives, and had no need for additional friendships with the uppity cute girl from the big city who had all the guys drooling over her those first few weeks. I got a job at the Pizza King two blocks from my house. That’s when the trouble started. I was going into my junior year, and three guys worked there as cooks. Three seniors. Steve Scott was 6’2”, quiet, shy, handsome, played on the basketball team, and dated the snippy little rich girl daughter of the owner of the Chevrolet dealership in town, the only place to buy a new car in North Winchester. Jacob Huffman also played on the basketball team. He was witty and sharp, a leader in the cool clique. His dad was a dean at the college, the cultural Mecca of the small town. Darrel McFarland was geeky, wore braces, was unfashionably smart, and was the student body president. His dad was a doctor. My mom was a nurse. He had charisma and charm. I was certain he would be President of the United States some day.

All three of them went to the Church of the Brethren and were buddies. I should have known better. Jacob and Darrel flipped a coin to see who could ask me out first. Jacob won. Darrel asked Polly Wiseman out and we double dated. Unbeknownst to me, this was Polly’s first date….ever. She was a chubby child, and during that summer, she had lost a bunch of weight, finally bringing her within the unspoken weight limit regarding teenage dating. We started the date in the afternoon and we went to the summer games of the Church of the Brethren high school youth group. In small town Indiana, the church groups are the centers of social activities for teenagers….at least for the preppy, going to college, my parents are middle class teenagers. I played pass the orange with Jacob, an orange tucked under your chin, which you must pass to the next person without using your hands. My perky pubescent breasts grazed his chest and his erection was clearly visible to even the most casual observer. I played wheelbarrow races with Polly, holding her legs while she walked on her arms, noticing the pubic hair peeking out from her shorts, wondering if anyone else saw it and worrying for her embarrassment. She had rather a lot of body hair, which I found mildly repulsive.

After the church games, we went to see a movie and stopped for hamburgers and milkshakes at Azar’s Big Boy restaurant. Darrel was driving and he took Polly home first, then Jacob, then me. Jacob did not kiss me goodnight, which puzzled me, and Darrel looked at me strangely, which also puzzled me. At the time, I had no idea about the coin toss. I liked Polly, and needed an ally as I started my junior year at a new school. She had a shortage of friends, seeing as she had only recently shed her fat girl physique and the social implications that go with it. I was poor, my clothes were from Kmart, but I was pretty and witty, and she decided to give me the benefit of the doubt. We became friends.

The next week, I went on a camping trip with the Church group, including Jacob and Darrel, but not Polly, who was a (gasp) Methodist. At work, the evening before, Darrel had confided his feelings for me, revealing the coin toss. I was torn, I liked them both. On the way to the Michigan dunes, we all sat on the floor of the church van, blankets and pillows askew. Because of the strategic placement of Darrel and Jacob on either side of me, and because of a few well placed blankets, I was able to hold hands and look longingly at both of them. The first evening, I flirted equally, but towards midnight, Jacob asked me to go for a walk. I did so, enjoying his tall stature, charmed when he swung from the low hanging branches of an Elm tree, amused by his Elton John imitation, and touched when he plucked a wild rose along the path and presented it to me. When he kissed me goodnight, I swooned and was convinced that I had made up my mind.

In the morning, I emerged from my tent to the sound of Darrel singing over the campfire. He flashed me an easy smile, braces glinting in the sunlight, breakfast adeptly in process under his capable hands, the scent of freshly brewed coffee urging me forward. He guided me to a picnic table, putting orange juice, cinnamon toast, eggs and bacon in front of me. I was awestruck. I had believed that the presence of a penis completely obliterated cooking skills from the male repertoire. At least, it always had in my household. My brother mowed the grass and shoveled snow. My sisters and I did cleaning, laundry and cooking, not necessarily in that order.

Darrel explained that his mother was often sick (I think she was an alcoholic) and his father was a small town GP and was never home, so he had learned at an early age that if he wanted to eat, he had to learn to cook for himself and his adopted sister. My maternal instincts surged along with my libido and I was no longer so sure about last night’s decision.

Mid morning, I headed for the beach…with David on one side and Jacob on the other. We sat down in the warm sand and discussed the situation. While Jacob and Darrel were friends, they agreed that I should choose, no hard feelings on either side. With that conclusion, confident I’m sure that his kiss the night before had secured the deal, Jacob got up and walked away. Darrel stayed, toying with the strings securing my bikini halter top. What’s a girl to do? He won by default.

At school on Monday, Polly was pissed, Jacob pouted. No hard feelings my ass. Maybe no hard feelings towards Darrel, but he wouldn’t look at me and snickered when I walked by about the two hours I spent necking with Darrel on the dunes. After two weeks of love poems, fervent phone calls, feverish protestations of love and a couple steamy sessions in the back seat of his car, (nothing beyond second base, by the way, I wasn’t that kind of girl…at least, not in high school) Darrel dumped me. My natural reaction, of course, was to bat my eyes at Jacob. Big mistake. Polly forgave me, Jacob hated me…and so did the rest of the cool kids at school. Life went on. Polly and I became inseparable.

Polly was 5’6”, a hundred and forty pounds, curly brown hair, highlighted with Hair Painting by Quiet Touch. She had small, twinkling blue eyes, a pouty mouth with a full lower lip, high cheekbones, big boobs, thick waist, slender legs. She had a sarcastic wit and provocative manner which drove the boys crazy. Her mother doted on her only daughter, buying her clothes, a car for her sixteenth birthday, and occasionally smacking her around when annoyed.

It was a friendship that worked. It wasn’t equal, but it worked. Polly had money, a car, pretty clothes. She gave me her hand me downs, which I greatly appreciated. I became an accountant because from my earliest memories, I could do the math. It didn’t take much to figure out how the power in relationships worked. I had charm, social graces, a pretty face, (but not too pretty), an easy going, light hearted personality, and I could talk my way into or out of just about anything. I gave Polly money for gas, and she decided what we would do and where we would go…because after all, it was her car. That really was fine with me. I enjoyed her company. We laughed a lot, fought a lot, and genuinely loved each other, as only teenage girls can.

I was a bleeding heart liberal, cringing every time Polly threw a Burger Chef bag out of her car window on a country road, calling her on racist comments, chastising her for looking down her nose at the country girls who found themselves pregnant with no man in sight. Polly was a die hard conservative, believing firmly that she was right and every one else who disagreed was wrong. The poor were to be pitied and provided paltry pennies from the church coffers, but keep their mitts off her father’s hard earned tax dollars. I was going to college on grants and scholarships…mostly provided by those hard earned tax dollars. I’m not sure Polly ever made the connection.

Polly was excessively neat and clean, ridiculing my mother’s messy trailer, insisting that I adopt her habits, which was not a bad thing. Her mother vacillated between “advising” me on my housekeeping and whining to Polly that she wished Polly could be more even tempered like that sweet Betty Jeanne. We argued about politics. We argued about friendships. We argued about grades. We argued about Winchester College and Purdue University. We bought matching bedspreads to use as roommates in our Purdue dorm room, but at the last minute, I decided that my mother was not ready to live alone, being divorced for only two years, and I enrolled at Winchester College, commuting my freshman year so I could be home with Mom…and by that time, I was tired of arguing.

Polly took it in stride, making quick friends with her assigned roommate. I was a frequent visitor, spending more weekends of my freshman year at Purdue than at Winchester. At a fraternity party in October, I met John Petro, a football player, with piercing blue eyes, a caustic wit, and a neediness for love exceeded only by my own. I saw him once a month, used no birth control, believing that you only got pregnant if deep inside, you really wanted to. Ah, the ignorance of youth. On April Fools weekend, on the spur of the moment, I hitched a ride in the middle of the month and got myself knocked up. Polly was aghast. If I kept the baby, I could no longer be her best friend. The fact that Polly slept around probably three times as much as I did didn’t matter. The fact that Polly to this day has never had a baby, and probably can’t, didn’t matter either. All that mattered was…what would people think?

In reality, I knew from the beginning that I couldn’t have this baby but I named him anyway…John Roger…after his father and my brother. I don’t know for sure if it was a boy, I was only 8 weeks pregnant. Perhaps I have to believe that because the thought that I gave up my only chance for a daughter breaks my heart. I talked to the baby inside my nineteen year old body, tried to explain, told him I loved him anyway, and that I would try my best to make my life count for something, to justify what I was about to do. My oldest sister had a baby out of wedlock, lived in a ratty apartment with cockroaches, worked in a factory that made wire coils, and left her baby with the alcoholic who lived downstairs. I could not, would not, let that happen to me or to my baby. I was finishing my freshman year, was on the dean’s list, was clear in my career path. I had sent John an anguished letter begging him to make us a family, which was never answered. I knew what I had to do. Polly wanted nothing to do with me until I had “taken care of it”. My mother and my sister in law accompanied me to the Women’s Crisis Center in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. They gave me Valium and as that baby was sucked from my uterus, someone made a joke and I giggled on the operating table…for which I have never forgiven myself.

I walked out of that clinic without a baby, with my friendship with Polly in tatters, but in tact. I realized that her affection for me was conditional on my social acceptability. Her acceptance of me had been based on her desire to enter the more acceptable circle in high school, and continued based on a similar need. What people thought was so very important to her. What the rest of the world thought of the way she dressed, the way she looked, the way she lived guided her every decision. I didn’t understand that, enjoying the attention that goes with being a little different from everyone else.

We graduated from college, moved into our own apartments, began our careers. I met and married Rexford, bought a house in the suburbs, started having babies. Polly came to visit every once in a while. Eight years after graduating from college, she was still single, still living in her one bedroom apartment. One day, in my lovely living room which was nicer that anything I had ever dreamed of in high school, with new wallpaper and graceful antique furniture, Polly turned to me with a wave of her arm and said, “Why do you deserve all this, the handsome lawyer husband, the sweet babies, and I don’t?” I couldn’t answer her question, and I had often asked it myself.

On my sixth wedding anniversary, Polly tied the knot with a man who had two young children. I was her matron of honor. Their relationship was shaky at best, he had huge problems with her past “promiscuity” and would occasionally lapse into name calling…and shoving…when the mood struck him. I know that she was unsure of her choice, but she was 31 and wasn’t getting any younger. They built a house, which she carpeted in white, insisting that the children follow her stringent rules regarding cleanliness. Her obsession with her surroundings grew, and her animosity towards her husband’s children grew with it. She called me one day, complaining that her husband insisted on seeing his children every other weekend, and on Wednesdays during the off weeks. She went on and on about his devotion to the boys and how unfair it was to her. I was the mother of two boys, close to the same age as her step children. I finally couldn’t take it any more, calling her selfish, pointing out that it wasn’t the kids’ fault that she carpeted her house in white, or that their father wasn’t around much and that she should be grateful to have a man who valued children. She called me a Judas. I told her to grow up and to not call me until she did.

I didn’t hear from her for five years.

She divorced a year later. I had another baby. She finally remarried an older man. She never had children. She still lives in an apartment.

I divorced ten years later. I still live in the house she admired.

She has a man who loves her, I have a house and three children.

Sometimes, not very often, but sometimes, I miss her.


Author's note: I posted this story, editing out the abortion, fearing the reactions some of you might have. I realized, after I hit the publish button, that I was being hypocritical. I am nothing, if not authentic. The abortion is an authentic part of my past. It had a profound affect on my life, perhaps the single most important event of my life. I deeply regret the ignorance of my youth, my stupidity, my lack of judgment. I am grateful that I had the option available to me. The force of that single act propelled me forward, made me finish college, has been a great source of courage for me for the rest of my life. Its almost as if I had the little voice of that child whispering to me, encouraging me. I had to make that baby count for something. I still do. I always will.

Epitaph

Ok, Kurt. Let it not be said that Betty ever fails to rise to any challenge placed before her.

Number of Books I own: Too many to count, scattered all over my house, on bookshelves in my kitchen, in my family room, in my children’s rooms, in my closet, at my office. I love books. I love how they smell, I love the vacation I take when I turn the page.

Last Book I Bought: The Mermaid Chair, by Sue Monk Kidd… I gave that book to my mother for Mother’s Day…and gave another copy to Robert for his birthday. I loved Secret Life of Bees, so I had to buy her next book, reputed to be even better than her first…but I’ve given away both copies I’ve purchased. Sounds like I need to go shopping….

Last Book I Read: Pull of the Moon, by Elizabeth Berg. My best girl friend bought that book for me for Christmas. It took me a few months to get around to reading it, but it was good! Flowery prose, which I like, but deep and heartfelt yearnings of a middle aged woman, to which I could most definitely relate.

Five Books That Mean A Lot To Me:

Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt: Though dark and painful, Frank does a great job of infusing humor into his horror of a childhood, and showing the bright spark that lives within each of us, flaming into brightness if given just a whisper of encouragement.

It was after reading his book that I decided that one day, I needed to tell the story of my childhood. I started writing, interviewed many, many of my relatives, took a tape recorder out to my sister’s in Seattle and sat on her porch, chatting until dawn about our childhoods, the silhouette of Mt. Rainier a silent partner in our musings. I finished fifteen chapters, had an outline for the remaining five, and made the mistake of letting a journalist client of mine read it. He told me it would be a great story for my grandchildren, but no one else would ever want to read it. I put down my keyboard and didn’t pick it up again for five years. I still can’t bring myself to finish that book. I guess I’m still waiting for a happy ending. When I started that book, the summer of 1998, I thought I had one. The title of the book was Winters’ Triumph. My maiden name is Winters and the story focused on how successful each of us kids had become, despite my father’s egregious acts. At the time, all of us were happily married, in relatively successful careers, were good parents. None of us were drug addicts or alcoholics or in abusive relationships or had ever been arrested for anything. All of that is still true, but my marriage falling apart made it difficult to see the (ahem) rainbow at the end of the storm.

Maybe someday….

The Partner, John Grisham: I hated this book. I vowed, after reading this book, that I would never write a book that would leave my readers sobbing, aching for the main character’s attraction to a heartless love interest. I promised myself that my books would lighten the lives and loads of those who cracked their covers. Hence, my inability to finish my own memoir.

Prodigal Summer, Barbara Kingsolver: I should read this book again, just for the divine pleasure of it, to remind me how to develop strong characters, how to weave a story and tie all the pieces together at the end. I read that book the summer after Rexford moved out. It gave me hope that life would go on, that someday, I would feel happy again.

The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett: This is and was my most favorite children’s book. I remember being captivated by the book the summer I turned nine years old. I read it several times. The life lessons of overcoming adversity, of trusting people with kind souls, of realizing that even in the midst of pain, beauty can be found and helped to flourish. My love of gardening grew in no small part from my passion for this book.

Sooner or Later, Elizabeth J. Winters Waite: The book I’m writing right now, hoping to finish by the end of the summer. I’ll keep you posted on this one. 

Yesterday, I perused a cemetery with an old friend, and decided that I would blog about epitaphs. Like Kurt suggested, revenge is a dish best served cold. I challenge any or all of you to write your own epitaphs. I like Carrie Newcomer’s song, Betty’s Diner. When I die, I will ask my heirs to attach earphones to my grave so that visitors can hear this song…with the chorus etched into the side of my headstone.

Here we are all in one place,
The wants and wounds of the human race.
Despair and hope sit face to face
When you come in from the cold.
Let her fill your cup with something kind,
Eggs and toast like bread and wine.
She’s heard it all, so she don’t mind.

Like Mother, Like Son

Last night found me clattering plates, cleaning up the kitchen, putting away the leftover spaghetti sauce, homemade, of course, a recipe of Mickey’s that my children ask for by name. My house is full of teenagers, friends of Greg’s, friends of Scott’s, and if I do say so myself, some of them are actually friends of mine. I hear Greg comment to his buds that he is going outside to look at the fireflies, and I see him head out the back door, by himself. I have resisted watching the fireflies much, makes me feel my single status more acutely and that is something that has been waning lately and I don’t want to encourage its resurgence. I like the feeling of independence and fortitude that has followed me lately. Who needs a man when I have…myself?

I give Greg a few minutes, then head out the back door.

“Mind if I join you, Greg?”

He’s sitting on the bench by the fish pond, in my usual seat, head resting on the back of the bench, gazing up at the tall, stately trees that grace my back yard. They are ablaze with fireflies, twinkling, winking, fairy lights on hickory holiday trees.

“Have a seat, Mom.”

He’s quiet for a moment as I settle myself next to him. I sigh in satisfaction. It has been a long and trying day and I am whipped. My father’s brush with death hit me in hard and confusing ways.

“This is really beautiful, Mom. I come out here all the time. The fireflies are so awesome, but its not just them, it’s the waterfall, and the garden and the sense of peace I feel just sitting here.”

“It’s a sanctuary, Greg.”

“That’s it! That’s the word I was searching for. Sanctuary. Like being in church.”

I laugh quietly to myself. My son mirroring my thoughts, mimicking my words.

“I’m glad we have this place, Greg. We are so lucky to be here, to be right here.” And I point to the ground.

“I know Mom. As much as I hate Wyoming sometimes, hate the hypocrisy, hate the bigotry, I know that this is a good place to be for a kid, and that living in the same place for your entire childhood is a luxury. I don’t know what I would do without Cameron…and Phillip. What would I do without my best buds?”

“You would make new best buds, Greg, but I’m glad that you haven’t had to. I’m glad that we have been able to stay here, grow up here.”

Phillip called from the back door.

“Greg, where are you?”

“I’m back here, looking at fireflies with my Mom.”

Phillip appears to my left. “You’re doing wha…OH! Oh, its beautiful. Wow. This is amazing.”

He looks up. The fireflies flutter a greeting. The waterfall sings its solo, the crickets an orchestra in themselves.

“I just wondered where you were, Greg. We were missing you inside.” Phillip puts his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heals, his head back, watching the insect ballet above.

“I come out here all the time. The fireflies are so awesome. And the waterfall…its just so cool.”

“I will always thank Mickey for this place. I would have never had the courage to finish it if he hadn’t helped me.”

“We’d a helped you Mom. We coulda done this.”

I laughed out loud. “Right. That’s why you scattered like flies every time I suggested that you grab a shovel, or move some rocks.”

“Did you ask us to help you, Mrs. Waite?” (oh, how I dislike being called Mrs. Waite, reminds me of my mother in law, but my kids’ friends have good manners…)

“Oh, yeah, she asked.” Greg chuckles. “Remember the wood pile that used to be back here? Remember the garbage cans and all the weeds?”

“Oh yeah! Remember when your dad made us move the wood pile from there (pointing to the corner of my garden) to there (pointing to the side of the shed)? I mean, what was the point? It all just rotted away anyway.”

“Oh well,” Greg sighs. “I guess I’m thankful to Mickey, too, because I really love what you two did out here, Mom.”

Greg and Phillip head back into the house. I sit for a few more minutes watching the fireflies, thinking that before those fireflies exhaust themselves and die, I’m gonna get me a guy back here that makes my knees weak and make him kiss me under the stars, the ones way up in the sky and the ones just up in my treetops. I smile at the thought. I wonder how much time I’ve got, I’ll have to look it up in Wikipedia.

I hear Greg’s voice.

“Kelsey, you’ve got to see these fireflies.”

“Hi, Mrs. Waite.”

“Hi, Kelsey.”

“Kelsey, sit on the bench there by my Mom, then put your head on the back of the bench and look up into the treetops.”

She sits and I look at her. Young, supple skin, long black hair, just like my son likes. I look over at Greg. His hands are in his pockets, holding up his jean shorts that come perilously close to slipping down over his butt. He is gazing up at the trees. I shake my head and smile.

“I’ll leave you two to look at these fireflies.”

“Thanks, Mom. And hey, say thanks to Mickey next time you see him, too, ok?”

“I’ll do that, son.”

So, Mickey, thanks. If your ears were burning last night, as your birthday came to a close, its because warm wishes were made on your behalf, by both me, and my 15 year old son.

Happy birthday.

And the Beat Goes On

So much for premature posting.

My father's pacemaker malfunctioned, making it appear as though he was having a heart attack. He is being transfered from my hometown hospital in Wabash County Indiana to the bigger hospital in Ft. Wayne to have his pacemaker replaced. They expect him to make a full recovery.

I had just made up my mind to err on the side of humanity and make the four hour trip to say goodbye.

Why do I feel slightly disappointed...cheated almost?

God certainly has a sense of humor.

And I feel pink cheeked with embarrassment.

Moving On

I’ve spend my whole life wondering what this moment would feel like, the moment I learned that my father was dying. I am crafting his eulogy in my mind as I sit here trying to put into words the confusion I feel. My nephew called at 3:31am. He didn’t wake me. I had gotten out of bed about ten minutes before, unable to sleep….and I can always sleep. I can count on one hand the number of times I have gotten out of bed in the middle of the night. Tonight, for some reason, I felt the need to check on my children at 3:20am. Scott was still awake, lying in bed in his boxers, text messaging with his friends.

“Why are you awake, Scott?”

“Why are you awake, Mom?”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“Well, then?”

I decided I needed to eat something, deciding to have a bowl of cereal. Only one clean bowl was left in the cupboard. I pull open the drawer for a spoon, the only ones left were the plastic, light up ones that came in the Captain Crunch boxes two months ago. I had yet to use one of those spoons, this seemed to be an appropriate time.

I sat down to play Spider Solitaire, my cereal in hand, when the phone rang. My father had had a massive heart attach, was on a respirator, was not expected to last more than a couple more hours. I asked my nephew to tell my father that I loved him and that I wished him a safe journey. However hollow those words sound, they were sincere. I love the good parts of my father, and there were a few of those. My analytical mind comes from my father. My drive and ambition comes from him. My appreciation for nature comes from him. A part of me, comes from him.

I didn’t know my father as anything other than the mythological creature that parents are to young children. My parents split when I was sixteen and I haven’t had any sort of relationship with him since. For better or for worse, I will never know my father with the wisdom of an adult. He will forever be someone I feared, who’s touch I shrank from, who’s anger was something to avoid at all cost. I have had no adult disagreements with him, no reversions back to childhood reactions because I simply haven’t interacted with him other than half a dozen superficial visits so that he could catch a glimpse of the grandsons he would never get to take fishing. A glimpse of them is all I could trust to give him. My momma bear instincts are pretty strong, and I wasn’t taking any chances.

I’m going back to bed now. When I wake up, my father will mostly likely have passed on. I’ll keep you posted.

Oh, and as to how I felt when I heard the news? I wept uncontrollably.

Safe

The parade started with the usual fanfare…firetrucks, sirens running. George had his yard set up as he always does on July 4th. Flags of every country bordered the sidewalk, reminding us that we are not alone in this world. An arch of red, white and blue balloons hovered over the parade as it passed under. Trees bedecked with flags and banners, red white and blue streamers abounding. The guests are encouraged to come similarly attired, most of them do. Myself, I chose a sleeveless red linen dress, and my leather thongs, of course. George stood guard with a water hose, providing a misting of cool relief to those passing under the arch in the scorching hot sun. When the fire trucks went under, they reciprocated by showering the lawn party in kind. Men and their water hoses, always seeking to one up the other. (g)

This is not your typical Independence Day parade, despite its traditional beginnings. In fact, it is anything but. The Rainbow Band was an early entry. One woman played water glasses, another her child’s Xylophone. There were antique trumpets and a teenager strumming a guitar, bongo drums and castanets, gourd rattles and triangles, symbols and a tambourine. Drums beat a steady rhythm, everyone else improvised along and somehow, it sounded like music.

The African American Drum Corp was awesome, dancers gyrating in an instinctual beat. Jamison Hair Design had cast members from the musical Hairspray, their transvestite owner crooning as they passed. Other features were four basses on the back of a pick up truck, plucking a deeply resonate tune, and every term expiring member of city council is running for mayor. We were showered with candy, refrigerator magnets, paper airplane kits, Frisbees, plastic glasses and of course, stickers. Sadly absent was the men’s drill team….a group of men who paraded down Hamilton Avenue with their…power drills. Making up for it though, the ever lovely Ladies Lawnchair Brigate, lip synching “You Don’t Own Me”, hair in curlers, face creamed noses, house coat attired, and leaving us all laughing.

Bringing up the rear was Pirates on Parade, with a sign that read, “You liked the parade? Say AAARGH!!”

Irreverent? Of course. But it brings home the notion that we are a nation of mixed bloods, a cohesive unit of differing opinions. After watching Hotel Rwanda last night, the parade brought home again how safe the society I live in keeps me and others are not so fortunate.

Speaking of safe, I stepped outside of my traditional box on Saturday, not just by doing cartwheels, but by walking across the bridge that spans the Ohio River, connecting Ohio and Kentucky.

When I was growing up, I lived in constant fear. My father was so very volatile, and my mother so very weak and unwilling to stand up to him, that most of my time was spent trying to stay out of the way. My reaction to this fear, as an adult, has been to be almost fearless. I am not afraid of spiders, or mice, or snakes, or bugs of any kind, or the dark, or being alone, or big dogs, or bad neighborhoods, or walking to my car at night, or heights, or airplanes or steep hills, or germs or terrorist attacks. In fact, I have only two fears. I fear ending up alone (like my mother) and I fear bridges. This fear of bridges is ironic, because I also have this fear of burning bridges. I have to keep relationships alive, regardless of how much pain the relationship has caused me in the past. My therapist says I have no pain velcro. It simply doesn't stick to me. I forgive and love anyway. The deeper I have loved, the more vehement the forgiveness. My father was so ruthless, so inherently evil, so blatent in his disregard for my well being, yet I seek to forgive him, to find a way to love him. I defend him when my therapist notes his shortcomings. The same with my ex husband. I cannot feel anger towards him, I feel too much love. The same with men who have brought me pain after my divorce. It simply isn't in me to do anything but try to keep that bridge, to douse the flames and keep the friendship, regardless of the cost to me.

Yet crossing a large bridge brings my heart up into my throat. A skyway bridge brings out the white in my knuckles like nothing else. I fear it will collapse. I fear that I will slide off the bridge. I fear that I will never make it to the other side, to safety, to security, to earth beneath my feet. Now, this fear is not incapacitating. It does not keep me from going where I need to go. It just causes a few anxious moments as I do my best to overcome the panic.

Its not a rational fear. A bridge has never harmed me in the past. And even if it had, y'all know I'd have to forgive it. I played on bridges growing up, they didn't bother me then, only as an adult. These bridges in our lives, these structures connecting what we had, what we thought we knew, what we loved and lost, to our futures, are scary. Its scary to date. Its scary to allow yourself vulnerability. Its scary to put yourself in a rejectable position. Its frustrating to try to read their minds, to wonder if they will call, to know what to say, what to wear, how to act. Deep inside, I know its all going to be ok. Deep inside, I know that I will not be alone for the rest of my life. Its not logical. Its crossing over that bridge that has scared the shit out of me.

That being said, I walked across the Purple People Bridge on Saturday, holding the hand of a really sweet man. At one point, in the middle of that bridge, we stopped and watched the lights twinkle in the towers of downtown Cincinnati. The stars were just coming out. He stood behind me and wrapped his arms around me. I leaned my head back, resting it on his shoulder. At that point, at that moment in my life, I have probably never felt safer.

Sore

Oh, I am so sore today. The muscles on the inside of my thighs are killing me. I’m sure I’m walking funny. With all the time I spend at the gym, you’d think I wouldn’t get sore, but perhaps I used muscles that don’t usually get much of a workout on the elliptical and weight machines. This doesn’t happen very often. I had a very exciting weekend, and well, excitement takes its toll. You see, I did something Saturday that I don’t do very often, in fact, its been months since the last time. The opportunity presented itself, and I couldn’t resist.

I wonder what the neighbors thought….arms and legs flailing about in my front yard. I’m not sure I’ve ever done it out in the open before, always preferring a little privacy. I did make sure my children weren’t home, though. I didn’t want them to see their mother making a fool of herself. Sometimes, I have dreams that I can’t do it anymore, but in reality, every time I try, it comes back to me. Maybe its like riding a bike, once you learn how, you never forget.

I make sure I do it at least once year. I want to make sure that I can still do it when I’m fifty. For some reason, that’s important to me.

I can’t do the splits anymore, but I can come close. Cartwheels, I still do just fine. Legs straight up in the air, land on my feet, can still do it in a straight line. Right hand, left hand, left foot, right foot. I did several in my front yard.

My neighbors will attest if you don’t believe me.

New Wheels

I push in the clutch with my left foot, turn the key, shove the gear shift into first, peel out of the dealership’s drive. I have new wheels. I am on the move. My minivan days are over, and my single girl days have never been better. Sometimes, it feels funny to have the nurturing heart of a middle aged mom and the fluttering heart of a single forty six year old debutante. I found a car that fits me. It’s a sedan, unblemished silver, sunroof, great stereo, side air bags…and a spoiler in the back…with a stick shift. Donning my sunglasses, the sunroof open, the wind whipping through my hair, squealing my tires on the hot asphalt, I forget that I am a responsible member of society. I forget that people depend on me…for their paychecks, for allowance, for remembering to put two drops in each of Kevin’s eyes, four times a day. When I am alone in my new car, its all about me. Its all about who I once was and who I want to be again. Its all about being too young to feel too old for anything.

I had a date three weeks ago, one of those spontaneous ones that appear out of no where. One minute, I was online chatting with someone who winked at me from Match.com, and fifteen minutes later I was outside sitting on my stone flower box, waiting for the guy to pick me up to cruise through Dairy Queen.

As I sat there, Kevin and his buddies came careening by on their bicycles. Their six pack of bikes screeched to a halt in my driveway as they all chorused me a greeting. I giggled with them as a gold SUV drove by slowly, a middle aged man peering intently out the window.

“Please, don’t let that be him.” I said a silent prayer to the universe. I don’t like SUV’s. I think they are gas hogs and are bad for the environment. They imply an image to which I am simply not ready to succumb.

Next, a conservative sedan, late model General Motors drove by, a middle aged man peering intently out the window.

“Please, don’t let that be him.” I said another silent prayer to the universe. I have nothing against late model GM cars, nor conservative sedans, but somehow, I get the impression that those who drive them don’t laugh very much, don’t ever exceed the speed limit, always play by the rules.

A black corvette roared by, a middle aged man in dark sunglasses nonchalantly taking in the scenery.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if that were him. Wouldn’t it be cool if that car pulled into my driveway, wowing my kid and his friends, varooming out of the driveway, speeding me away for a two hour vacation from domesticity.”

My attention was pulled back to my boys and his buddies, Darius is telling a joke and I strain to listen. He is 2 years older than Kevin and sometimes, I wonder if the age difference gives Kevin more of an education than I’m ready for him to have.

I hear another car coming down the hill and I turn to look. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the black corvette come back around the block from the other direction and lo and behold, it pulls into my driveway. My heart thumps. Other parts thump.

I think to myself, “Betsy Jeanne! What are you, sixteen or forty six?”

I’m thinkin’….maybe sixteen! That’s the last time I can remember my heart beating faster because of a car!

The boys crowd around the car, oohing and aaahhing.

I open the passenger door and climb in, getting a good look at the salt and pepper haired man behind the sunglasses. I’m thinkin’, pretty ballsy of me, this man I’ve never met, only traded emails and IM conversations, just climbing into his car. I close my eyes for a second and feel the vibe. He’s a good guy. I’m relatively safe.

Darius says, “You put the hood back on your car.”

Jack says, “Whhaaa?”

Darius says, “Last time you were here, your car didn’t have a hood.”

My mind races. What on earth is he talking about? Then it hits me. My son’s best friend, Phillip’s father has a souped up Camaro…without a hood…a shiny, black, spit polished engine for all the world to admire. Jack is looking at me quizzically.

“He thinks you are Phillip’s father.” Speaking matter of factly, as if Jack knows who the hell Phillip is, much less his father.

“Do you still have the loudspeaker?” Darius asks hopefully.

Last time Phillip’s dad was here, he wolf whistled at me with his loudspeaker. I’ve known Phillip’s dad for ten years. He’s happily married, has never so much as even winked at me, there’s nothing to extrapolate other than a middle aged married man doing one little tiny manly thing for a single middle aged woman. I hope Darius hasn’t gotten me into trouble.

“My middle son’s best friend’s father has a souped up black Camaro. Darius doesn’t know the difference between a Camaro and a Corvette.” I roll my eyes.

Jack laughs. I sigh inwardly in relief.

We head for Dairy Queen. That’s what started this. We were IMing about cruising the DQ when we were teenagers, talking about how kids don’t cruise anymore. He makes the obligatory turn into the DQ, pulls around the drive, heads back out into traffic.

“Where to?” he asks. I smile to myself. I think he likes me.

We head for the highway. He stops and puts the top down. He shifts quickly, gathering speed and power. The ‘Vette has six speeds. I’ve never driven a stick shift with more than four. I feel the familiar rush of take off, the physics of acceleration pushing me back against the fine black leather seats. My smile doesn’t fade, beams even brighter as we pull into the fast lane and he presses the pedal to the metal. My boys damn well better never drive like this, but with this guy, right now, I’m having one of those “time of my life” moments.

He takes me to Outback, we order the same thing. We talk about our kids, we talk about our businesses, we talk about our former lives as married people. I watch his eyes light up as he discusses his son’s adventures as a college student, observe how he uses his hands to express himself, how his eyes cloud over in pain as he slowly opens up about some issues with his brother. We talk about his passion for cars, my passion for writing. He reads my blog, in fact, were it not for my blog, we wouldn’t be talking at all. We had exchanged winks, emailed once or twice, then I didn’t hear from him for a week and a half. I decided that he must not be interested, and if he wasn’t going to be a PB (potential boyfriend) perhaps he might become a devoted reader, so I sent him my blog address. He wrote back a few days later, telling me that he was “mesmerized” by my writing, and wouldn’t I please go out with him…

So hear we are. Ailing parents, recalcitrant exes, incredible children, unrepentant siblings, pressures of work, passions for hobbies in lieu of partners. We cover the gamut and get up to go.

We pull into my driveway and I invite him to sit with me on the bench by the fish pond.

The fireflies are just beginning their evening’s entertainment, a mourning dove calls plaintively, the stars begin their slow trek across the night sky and a half moon flickers its reflection in the pond at our feet. I sit back and look at him. He looks at me, at my hair, at my eyes, then glances down at my mouth. I smile.

“You have the most beautiful eyes I think I have ever seen.” He says, just the right hint of wonder in his voice. “And such a lovely smile.”

This guy is good.

I lower my eyes and look back up, just a hint of a smile turning up the corners of my mouth.

But then, so am I.

“May I kiss you?” his voice catches in the back of his throat.

“I think I’d like that.” I whisper.

The orchestra cues, lightening flashes, the thunder just a few seconds behind. Droplets of rain begin their descent. The top is still down on his Corvette.

“Will it take you long to get it up?” I query, maternal concern winning out over budding passion.

“I don’t know, its been awhile” he says wryly.

My brow furrows in confusion, then realization of my faux pas floods my face in horror. You don’t kid around about that stuff with guys over age 45. Its just not funny to them.

I sit up straight. “Oh! I didn’t mean..!”

He pulls me back and kisses me soundly, laughing as he does. “I know, I just couldn’t resist the joke. The way I figure it, those cows got wet when they were standing out in the field, I figure a little water now and then won’t hurt them a couple years later.”

Several minutes later, he’s backing out of my driveway and I’m heading back inside to answer questions about the black Corvette and the half hour I sat with a PB next to the pond. My, how roles reverse sometimes as a single mom.

I haven’t seen him again. We’ve exchanged a few emails and a few IMs and he still reads my blog…and he gave me permission to write this one. I asked before I even sat down to the keyboard.

I am enjoying being single, perhaps for the first time in my life. My new car is a lot like me right now. Not exactly new, but still in pretty good shape. Elegant, but casual. Four doors, but with a sporty look, and the suspicion that the rules might bend a little once in awhile, just for the fun of it.

After all, I can’t decide if I’m forty six…or still just sixteen.