Party Like It's 2010

I love new beginnings. A chance to start with a clean slate, wipe away the mistakes, make it right.

A Long Time Ago in a Land Faraway

She Never Went Hungry

She couldn’t remember

the first time she saw an avocado.

Even if she’d known about them

they would have been too expensive

to find their way to her shopping cart.

She bought at the base exchange:

potatoes, flour, sugar

canned corn and red beans

Wonder bread and baloney.

He took his lunch.

Sandwiches and cookies and

a thermos of coffee.

She waitressed at the pancake house

where two free meals

could be anything on the menu

(except the T-bone.)

Mostly she chose pancakes,

homemade pie, ice cream

growing plump beneath the

white nylon uniform.

By Thanksgiving she knew

her rounding stomach

was more than too much starch.

If she didn’t count the vomiting

and the loss of interest in sex,

it was a good time.

She quit her job, took up nesting

filled the freezer with casseroles

and the dresser with tiny

handmade shirts and blankets

While he spent all his time

working on the car.

She filled the empty space

with television

mother-to-be magazines

and lemon meringue pies.

What Else Could He Do

The walls are thin and she can see sunlight around the windows. When the wind gets up, the howling keeps her awake and creates small dunes of red sand along the west walls. During the day she wedges cotton into the cracks around the windows with a case knife. It helps, a little, but they still have to sleep with a wet wash cloth over their faces in order to breathe. 

She didn’t ask for this life, had once imagined joining her sister on the assembly lines at the plant in Dallas. But that dream was overcome by a handsome airman who undid her bra with one hand on their first date. She made him fasten it back and take her home straightaway but his big gold-toothed smile and an embarrassed apology made her give him a second chance.

A month later he asked her to marry and she said yes. She knew he had a child and wasn’t quite divorced yet, but he promised to fix that soon. After the wedding at city hall, they rented a house in River Oaks near her sister so she could babysit her niece and nephew. 

After he was discharged from the service, he took a job driving long-haul trucks. He was gone a lot but home long enough for her to get pregnant. In the summer, he brought home ears of fresh corn and tomatoes and green beans from the roadsides where he stopped to sleep. And then one night he showed up with a scrawny kid with long braids and his hazel eyes, carrying a grocery sack of faded dresses and raggedy underwear. “What else could I do?” his eyes begged.

Fresh Start

In the summer of ’88, I loaded up everything I owned in the largest truck I could get from U-Haul and moved to a former apple orchard outside Aromas. Within a few months I’d populated my two acres with a ewe and her two babies, a dog, a cat, and a pair of gay goats. In the rare evenings when the fog didn’t come in, I imagined I could see the ocean through the notch between two small hills on the western horizon. 

Some nights I’d pick up a jug of red wine, throw briquettes on the rickety barbecue, and grill a big ribeye for me and the dog. Most days I’d work awhile in the yard or the garden area. Once I came across a small snake hiding under a thick patch of Johnson grass. Deathly afraid of snakes, I called the Aromas Fire Department for help. “Is it on fire?” they asked.

Another time a red ferret raced into the garage and out again. Occasionally wild chickens would try to roost in the laundry area. Once I found a small greenish egg up near the box of Tide.

Over time I grew tan and muscled and comfortable with myself in a way I didn’t remember being before. I canned apples and made applesauce and finally got a small garden put in. I got to know my neighbor with the funny accent (he was from Malta by way of Canada) who made his own wine and cured olives. I learned to take his advice about most things.

My life now is tamer. I miss the sense of adventure, the naive belief in unlimited possibilities.

Freezing

Yesterday seemed warmer somehow. The tree, the fireplace, the warmed over tamales. A spectacular dinner orchestrated by my brilliant son. 

Today I feel like an icicle, waiting to break off the gutter and crash to the ground.

Getting Closer

Fabulous art from bengalized.com

It's almost here--Christmas, then fast on its heels, the New Year. It's true what they say: time flies faster as you grow older. 

But it's also true that we can slow it down just by taking a deep breath, refusing to let go of each minute, each second, until we've sucked all the sweetness out of it. My mantra remains: beauty, order, and purpose.

Yearning to Breathe Free

YOO HOO!

Russell has been my guy from the beginning. My eyes are full of tears. I can't explain it. It just is.

My Brain on Work

To Do List

• Make sure everyone turns in their timesheets
• Turn in all the timesheet information
  
• Reorganize teacher assignments
• Notify teachers that are being "let go"
  
• Identify and punish students who are terrorizing bus drivers
• Find classroom space for two new "outside" programs
• Make sure everyone gets their picture taken for badges
• Make sure I get my picture taken
• Make sure everyone knows about the Jan 11 training
• Find out EXACTLY when/where/if training is taking place
• Reassure the principal that after school is under control
• Reassure my district office boss that everything is under control
  
• Convince myself that after school is under control
• Get all the staff authorizations in place for 2010
• Drink more coffee

I Love Art

That sings to me; art that sucks me in, makes me want to dance. Art that sits outside the mainstream. Chor Boogie paints with a spray can, public art, big art. I want to apprentice with Chor Boogie.