Dancing Our Age?

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The song comes on the radio and I feel a hip twitch. I run from the home office to the living room to be closer to the music, and the other hip twitches. My right foot hits the oriental carpet with a stomp, and then both feet hit the carpet hard – toe foot, toe foot. My heart lifts with the beat, and I scoot to the stereo and turn up the volume.

Rock and roll, baby.

Suddenly, I’m 20 again. College dances. I close my eyes and smell the spilled beer, the sweaty college boys, the perfumed girls. Ode to Joy. Old Spice. I see us, moving our hips back and forth, jumping up and down to the beat.

Laughing. Shouting. Wild and Free.

I open my eyes, dancing with a huge grin on my face. The dog hops up from his place in the sun to see what his crazy mistress is doing. He looks astonished, then runs over to me, jumping up as if he, also, wants to dance.

Then I glance toward the far wall. The mirror shows the scene. Middle-aged woman with doggy dancing in the middle of living room on a Wednesday afternoon. The college scene fades, my smile disappears. Where’s the cute 20-year-old? Who the hell is this freaky lady?

I turn my back on the mirror, order the dog to ‘Sit! and “Stay!” and I dance like crazy until the song ends.

Friendship (in pantoum)

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(Check out the tab above,”The Wighting Life, ” to read about a pantoum poem.)

When we walk along the shoreline

Best friends since the dawn of our time

Seagulls laugh at our giggles

As we remember the times gone by.

 

Best friends since the dawn of time

Speak truths never left unsaid

As we remember the times gone by

Pelicans soar above.

 

Speak truths never left unsaid

As the sand brushes our toes

Pelicans soar above

Sorrow creases our furrowed brow.

 

As the sand brushes our toes

Conversation turns to the past

Sorrow creases our furrowed brows

Silence surrounds our words like a hug.

 

Conversation turns to the past

Ex-husbands, sick children reappear

Silence surrounds our words like a hug

The past is undone as we speak.

 

Ex-husbands, sick children reappear

Words send them away with the waves

The past is undone as we speak

The present reveals the sun’s light.

 

Words send them away with the waves

Friendship sooths the rough edge of life

The present reveals the sun’s light

The future is ours at sunset.

 

Friendship sooths the rough edge of life

Best friends since the dawn of our time

The future is ours at sunset

When we walk along the shoreline.

Good Morning, Moonshine

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 I open one eye and read the yellow-tinted clock – the one I’ve wanted to move away from my night table for years, but never do.

 1:45 a.m.

 I sigh and open the other eye. Really? Because right now my sight is rather blurry. Maybe the clock says 9:05. Ah, that would be bliss, to have slept through the night, an unlikely occurrence for most women over the age of, well, over that age.

 When I think about it (and really, I might as well think now, because it’s unlikely I’ll get back to sleep), we women have a bum rap. Finally, when we’re over that certain age – too old to have babies screaming for a bottle or teenagers breaking a midnight curfew – so we can finally sleep undisturbed, our bodies won’t let us!

Just another example of why God must not be a woman.

I laugh at my idiotic mutterings. However, as I listen to my husband snore softly next to me, having absolutely no problem with sleep, I wonder if I’m not so crazy after all.

I stare out the window and close my eyes. 100  99   98   97

       “Cheep! Cheep cheep!”

My eyes snap open. Birds? At a quarter to two in the morning?

          “Tweet cheep chirp chirp chirp!”

An entire melody. Impossible. Isn’t it? I always thought that birds woke up with the sun. So what’s the singing about?

I rise from the bed as husband rolls over, comfortable as a dog; in fact, I almost stumble over our golden, who is flat on his back on the floor by my side of the bed, legs open wide, eyes closed, mouth in a wide grin. Men! They are blessed, I mumble.

But then I realize that it’s light enough so that I can see the dog’s happy torpor. Maybe the clock is broken, and I’ve slept six full hours to wake with the rising sun. Yippee! I race to the window and gape.

 A spectacularly bright half moon gleams back at me, as pleased as the slumbering dog. Huh, so the moon is male too! And the moon is so bright, the birds got confused and woke up and began to sing their version of “Good Morning Starshine, The Earth is Alive!”

I stumble toward the kitchen and the oven clock. 2:03.  Drat.

I pause, wondering what to do now. Warm up some milk? Munch on a cookie? I open up the cookie tin and pick up a chocolate chip bar made earlier in the day. As I stand on one leg, then the other (working on my yoga balance), I stare at the refrigerator door, full of family pictures made into magnets. Our kids, grandkids, friends, all smiling out at me. Thank goodness we never bought one of those ‘new’ silver steel fridges. If we’d gone modern, we’d never be able to slap our life onto the front of it.

I bite on another chunck of the sweet gooey bar as I peruse the photo of our sweet grandson. There’s a picture of him as an infant. Just a few days ago I’d spent a couple of hours playing with the 1-year-old. As I left to return home, the toddler wrapped his arms around my neck and opened his mouth wide, like a fish, and pressed it against my mouth – his kiss goodbye. God, I’d melted like ice on hot tar.

Now I tiptoe back to the moon-infused bedroom, dog unmoved, husband still in dreamland, bed inviting me to join them in mindless slumber.

What the heck, I’ll try.

Good morning starshine
The earth says hello
You twinkle above us
We twinkle below

Good morning starshine
You lead us along
My love and me as we sing
Our early morning singing song   (by Oliver, in Hair)

What I Didn’t Do on My Summer Vacation

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What did you NOT do this year on your summer vacation?

Mid-August this year, I reflected on last year at the same time. Even more, I focused on what I wasn’t doing this year.  I did not drive cross country, steering away from a settled 10-year-home in Boston to a bayside town on the other side of the country. No desperate packing of ‘must haves’ after the even more difficult job of getting rid of so many items – furniture, rugs, books, antiques, hard-object memories that I simply didn’t have room to keep in our downsized near future.

Not wanting to release negative energy, I learned a year ago how to say goodbye with a smile: goodbye to the stiff old chair my father’s sister bought in the1950s; goodbye to the piles of notebooks that journaled my life for the past 15 years; goodbye to the rug that son Sean stained when he dropped the bowl of blueberry buckle; goodbye to the crib that Sophie, our first granddaughter, climbed out of when she was 10 months old; goodbye to the double bed with cherry headboard that once gave sleepy shelter to my 80-year-old mother and 16-year-old niece, together, during a stormy Thanksgiving night. Mom claimed that Stephanie kicked her for 8 long hours; Stephanie moaned that her Nanny snored louder than the wind.

But memories stay with us, even if the objects don’t. So what I didn’t do on August 8 this year, was push the essentials into our 1 car – essentials like 2 suitcases, 1 work computer, and 1 large golden retriever with water bowl and blankie, and drive with my 1 essential husband out of the town we’d called home for 10 incredible years.

The town didn’t want to give us up. We’d understood that scary fact last August as roadblock after roadblock – literal and figurative – appeared. Organizations that promised to collect our valued goods – mattresses, headboards, tables and chairs – would call 15 minutes before pick up and say, ‘never mind.’ Friends who promised to take care of cherished plants changed their minds minutes before taking them home, crying “but what if Benji dies in my care – you’ll never forgive me.” Our one essential car broke down a week before takeoff, some rare car part gave out that perhaps my husband understood but I never did.

And then, on the day we were to depart, the car wouldn’t start. At all. New battery dead. In the driveway at 7:15 on a hot humid summer morning, where all was packed, dog settled in back seat, exhales allowed, the car said NO.

We did, somehow, coax it to begin again, but then, driving down Monument Street, the curving road lined with oaks and pine and cherry, stone walls and big solid brick houses, a behemoth streaked across the road, huge and feathered, looking
like a monster from another world. Husband hit the brake hard, and our getaway car shuttered to a stop. The monster stopped too and turned to stare us down. A wild turkey, with dark bottomless eyes that seemed to say, “I dare you leave
this place.”

Husband, never one for hyperbole or mysticism, whispered, “do you think it’s going to let us go?”

“The turkey?” I whispered back.

 “No, the town,” he said louder as he tapped the accelerator. The car lurched forward, our released sighs helping it along, and we finally, finally, drove on toward our future to the other side.

A Rhyme for All Seasonings

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 “Peas and beans

potatoes steamed.

That’s today’s news

Do you want some stewed prunes?”

My friend Alice, the waitress, looked at the two truck drivers expectantly as they sipped on their drinks. They both looked over their menus at each other, and then at her.  The guy called ‘Ralph’ began to laugh until his friend ‘Jack’ kicked him under the table.

“Well, ma’am,” Jack drawled.  “I’m not one for prunes. How ‘bout the burger and fries?”

“Burgers and fries cooked just right. 

Medium or done a little light?”

Alice acquired a Master’s in English with me once, aeons ago, but now she owned a funky diner in the middle of nowhere, U.S.A.  And she had certainly put her own twist, or seasoning, to the place.

“Uh, yes, I’d like mine rare please.”

Alice then looked at Ralph, whose mouth was spread open like a day-old newspaper.  He jumped when Jack kicked him again. “Tuna salad, I think,” Ralph mumbled.  His red beard trembled when he answered, and he looked like he wanted to bolt for the door.  However, the two men were sitting in a booth at the far side of the diner called “A Rhyme for all Seasonings.”  I had a feeling that Ralph was the kind who always picked a table near the door when he went out to a bar or a diner, but when they arrived, every booth had been full except this one.

“Celery and mayo is nice. 

How ‘bout some rye bread sliced?” Alice asked.

Ralph stared at Alice as if she was an exhibit at a high tech museum.  She stood there in front of him, light brown hair highlighted with silver, little white cap sitting on top like a tiny Easter bonnet, tight white uniform around curving hips and bosom, hands on her hips waiting for his answer.

“Huh?” Ralph responded.

“Do you want rye bread?” Jack asked with exasperation.

“No, white,” Jack answered defensively.

“White is pretty, wheat is better.

Haven’t you read the Surgeon General’s letter?” Alice replied.

“White!” Ralph barked.  “White. White. White!”

“Relax and smile buster. 

No need to spit and bluster.” 

Alice swung her ample hips away from Ralph, winked at Jack and me (sitting at the nearby counter), and swayed off.

“What in the hell was that?” spluttered Ralph. “This is a hell of a diner.”

“Hey, look around, Mr. Shakespeare,” said Jack. “This is one place we can get a little literary education while making a pit stop.  The guys love it here.  They feel smarter when they hit the road.”

Ralph looked at the packed diner.  “Well, I’ll be.  I just feel stupider.”

“Next time, order the wheat, stupid,” Jack replied.  Then he shouted, “Hey Alice, “how ‘bout another round.  The last one went too easily down!”

The diner burst into applause.