Santa

An article in Mamapedia started my day.  A little boy had discovered mom's stash of stocking stuffers, and should the mom then just let it out of the bag once and for all that Santa is not real.

I flashed to myself, a little girl, probably about five.  We went down, from Ottawa, to visit my grandparents in Arlington, VA.

I snuck into the living room early Christmas morning and found sticks in my Grandpa Dinny's stocking!  I was heartbroken and quickly switched the sticks with what was in my stocking.

I also noticed a piece of red flannel in the fireplace.

Later, Grandma Dinny told me, in a big gasp, that Santa must have ripped his pants.  "Oh" she said dramatically, "Mrs. Santa is going to whip Santa with a switch and make him sleep in the woodshed!"

I was horrified, poor Santa living like that.  No wonder he was mean enough to put sticks in sweet Grandpa's stocking!

The next year, back in Ottawa, we were walking to a store and Santa happened to be standing outside.

We ran to hear him, joined the circle around him.  He was saying, "Oh, and last year, I ripped my britches!  Mrs. Claus whipped my backside and made me sleep in the woodshed!"

Horrified, I managed to find the courage to tell him, "That was my house!"

Years later, my mother would laugh and say you should have seen his face.  And she always swore she hadn't set it up.

To me, I feel lucky.  I have teenage sons and I still tell them Santa is real.  Oh, not the sneak around and pretend he shops at Walmart Santa.  The real one.

I am lucky.  I am so lucky to have a God that knows I am dense and leaves me no room to doubt.  And I have Santa smiling, laughing, loving and always hearing, having fun in my life.

Every year I ask Santa for a little something.  I never tell anyone else.   Every year Santa gets it to me through someone, somehow.

The strongest example was one year, my boys were babies.  I asked for a foot stool.  I said I didn't care what it looked like.  (I know the poor guy is very busy!)  And I wanted a pet, but I wasn't sure with two young babies, that I was ready for the added responsibility.  I'd leave that up to him.

That year too, a week or so before, I was shopping.  I admit, now and then I hear voices.  Luckily, they tell me good things so I'm not going to take drugs to make it stop.  This one was a family friend.  Frank.

He was more my sister in law's friend.  He died in a sky diving accident.  He had a wicked sense of humor and loved Heidi fiercely.

He spoke to me that day and told me I had to go to Phar Mor pharmacy.   I really didn't feel like it, but he insisted.

I went in, he told me to go back to the book section.  He made me get a Christmas collection by Maeve Beachey called "This Year Will Be Different"  and it had a cozy fireplace glowing on the front, beautiful, big fire.

"It's for Mary."  He said.

Okay.   Mary is my mother in law.  He loved messing with her.

I get home.  The phone is ringing.  It is Mary, choked up.  She shared a duplex with my brother in law and his wife.   The house had caught on fire.  There had been a lot of damage.

I looked down at the bag I was holding, the fire, This Year Will Be Different, and I could hear Frank howling with laughter in my head.

So, Christmas comes.  Paul and Julie and Nana (Mary) were in an apartment temporarily.  The house had been that damaged.

They, sort of as a joke, left the presents charred and smoke damaged.
They owned a second hand store.  They had been collecting all the match box cars that wandered through all year.  There was a huge garbage bag full.  The boys were thrilled!

They didn't notice many were melted, smoke damaged.   Later, they would be in the store saying, "Wow, that car sort of looks like the one we have, but ours is browner."

We had so many cars, and potty training was so not popular, I used to bribe them.  You should see the looks I got in public restrooms.  "Momma!  I pooped and I peed, do I get a car AND a truck?"

Oh well.  Sure beat diapers.

So, in front of me is a large trash bag with a bow and a box.

I open the trash bag.  There is no way to fully describe what sat before me.  Golden legs, three, charred and burnt, leading up to a smokey, dusty clear plastic top with the ugliest plastic flowers, some melted, lying as on a battlefield.

"You said you didn't care what it looked like!"  this joyous voice chortled in my head and had a great, long, belly laugh.

"Gee, thanks?"   Trying to plot, is there any way to get even with Santa Claus?

Then the box.  I open it.  It is a plain, brown box.  I'm afraid.  I open it.  It is a picture of someone holding a cat with "Bootsie" written underneath.  Bootsie?

I pull out the picture, and there is a clear, plastic pouch with gray powder.   I just stare.  Julie chimes in, "It's a cremated cat. Paul gave you a cremated cat for Christmas."

My words came back to me...not sure...not sure I was ready for the...responsibility.....I look down at Bootsie...how many people get cremated cats for Christmas?   Other than a dusting a few times a year, I can't say Bootsie was any trouble at all.

I used to laugh, imagine going to the vet with Bootsie, not even sure what sex the darned critter was...and saying, "What do you mean, he's...deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeead????????"   bursting into tears.

Bootsie liked the back room, and I could hear him her it purring at me when I did laundry.

A minister at a church where I sang was fascinated.  "How much does a cremated cat weigh?"  "Can you see any teeth?"

When he was leaving to go to another church, I brought Bootsie in at his farewell service.  He lit up, seeing me coming up the aisle, box in hand.  His wife, guess she'd heard stories, was a southern belle and started in "Oh no, you are NOT!"

I hadn't really meant to pass the Boots, but I just had to, given the moment.

So, Bootsie is somewhere further south, hopefully still purring when people do laundry.

And to me, I don't care what anyone says ever, Santa will always be very, very real.

When I Miss You

I miss you in little moments

the breath

between to and do.

I breathe in your energy

your sweetness

feel your smile next to me

and know

there is nothing better on this earth than to be loved.

silly jokes

a smile dancing in empty air

self aware

willing to share.

tears, something said years ago,

if I were driving to you in the night

billboards would line

sweet

sensitive 

soul

and the end, 

a psycho hotel,

but this landing

would be funny,

warm,

the kind of crazy that taps your toes

and proves 

laughter is always

always

bigger than life.

Your sweet smile

dances my heart

please know I call on it

often

so ridiculously often

when you are away.

It's Black Friday

2011.  My inbox on yahoo must have sixty messages, shop here,
find the best deals here.  One day only.  No, wait, TWO days only.

I have to admit, I have a 'thing' now about Black Friday.  I'm in my fifties.  That means I have to say things like "See!   This is what's wrong with America!"

But, I'm sorry, it is.   We take a day that is about gratitude, (that's Thanksgiving, by the way), and focusing on family, friends, abundance, and then top it off with commercial madness.

How can anyone focus on all there is to be grateful for when they are knowing they have to be out at midnight, standing out in the cold, to get that Asus Tablet for a hundred bucks off?

How can you sit back, relax, look around, and just feel the awe at all there is for you in this life when every commercial is about all you can save if you just bust your tail a bit more?

I admit, I sat here last night and saw a commercial that said if you go to their store at midnight you get this way cool camera.  I looked at the clock and I could just make it.  I thought that would be funny, all the spouting I did yesterday about people and their shopping madness to have the boys wake up and I show them a camera I got as a doobie prize for standing outside.

I stood outside last night and felt the quiet, listened to the stream, looked up at the beautiful sky through the trees.  No one even offered to give me a camera.  But, that's okay.  Until I am sucking pudding through a straw and forgetting my kids' names, I'll remember.

This morning, I was so grateful to see an e mail from the Chopra Center saying, "Don't let black Friday get you down!"  I was almost in tears!  They understand!!  Soothe my disconcerted soul, silly Indian man!  

I clicked it and it was about skip the mall frenzy, buy our meditation packages for cheap.

They didn't understand.  But, that's okay.  I do.

I had the best Thanksgiving of my life.  I am healing from congestive heart failure.  Long story.  Stay away from Actos, if all those law commercials don't convince you, take it from me.   A year plus of walking up the stairs left me winded and scared.  All because of one stupid pill.   Now, sadly taking drugs, but grateful for those happy pills, I cooked for seven plus hours and other than noisy feet, could have cooked for more.

("I could have cooked all night...." )

I kept thinking about "What is a feast?"  and it made me so happy.
A feast...celebrate...what to celebrate...I celebrate my sons.  I celebrate that I am fifty and now I know family can be a good word.
I celebrate I have created, with them, a nest where I am safe.  Where I am not criticized, belittled, afraid, but I can say how I feel, I can crawl in and point to the outside world and find comfort, peace.  I can ride in the wind with two amazing people and yell WAHOO!!!

If that's not a gift, well, it is a gift.  It's the greatest gift there is.

I celebrated having work that I'd go insane not doing.  Last year, we had a blizzard and no one could get here for a whole week.  No teaching voice!  I ended up teaching the family dog to sing "If you're happy and you know it, bark real loud..woof woof" and "How much is that doggie in the window?  woof woof"

She got it too, only barked on her lines.  She started to get excited and barked on mine.  I stopped and I said, "Sweetheart, you're stepping on my lines."    She kind of grumbled.  But, hey, she got it.

She passed away later that winter.  But, boy, she was a miracle dog if ever there was one.

The boys laughed at me singing with Sheba.  They said, "Mom, most people can take a week off of work."

I'm so grateful to earn my keep by doing my favorite thing with this line up of one amazing person after another.  I feel like I am watching a parade on teaching days.  Everyone so different, everyone so much fun, touching.   Then we get to explore music.  That thing that saved my life.  That thing I will never understand but always love with all my heart.

And, as cliche as it may be, boy do I celebrate having a wonderful circle of friends.

A feast!  We humanoids have been feasting since the dawn of humankind.  People feasted to honor Jesus, people feasted to honor coming to this wonderful land.  Now we feast to be stoked up to go to the mall?  I don't think so.  Not us wolfies.  We feasted for all the right reasons.  ha ha  We feasted because life is so darned good, it deserved a special day just to say thanks to it.

And feast we did.  Pineapple glazed yams, malt marinated turkey, wow, the best ever, stuffing with leeks, bacon and mushrooms.  We went around the table, praying, thanking God for things in our lives.
Of all the good food, good laughs, nothing will ever top hearing my youngest say, in a choked voice, that he is grateful for me, that he doesn't know how he would have made it without me.

Feeling is mutual, dude.

Silly Billy

Got this email I was planning to have fun laughing at, all this loopy
chat with the aliens stuff...but read it in the wee hours, and it got
my attention somewhat.  This one guy is from the Andes talking at
their 11 11 11 fest.   He seemed pretty credible.   

I asked the aliens if they were around to come say hi.   I'll let you
know.  Hope they are the nice ones.   hahahhahahaha  Have to admit, I'm a 

bit afraid to pop outside now.

Had a friend in college, Billy Morgenstern.  He did one acid trip too
many, and got obsessed with aliens and other things.  Like, he ran up
to this poor woman shopping with a toddler and grabbed the milk out of
her hand and said, "You can't drink that, it's radioactive!"

The toddler was impressed.

Well, we all were.

And he would go sit on this one hill and wait for the aliens.  I used
to go out when it was bad weather with a note in a baggie.."Dear
Aliens, Billie is in apartment 1 B."   and then he'd come in.

Now, this was Baltimore.

I'm telling a good friend Bill about this guy.  He stops me..."What was his name?"

He describes him to me.   Very distinctive (cute) guy.   

Bill, in Ephrata, knows Billy from Baltimore!!!   hahahhahaha

They met at the local metaphysical bookstore here in York.

Billy was at a lecture a few weeks prior and Bill was there, a snooty
friend had gone with Bill. She was across the room.

Billy starts whispering to Bill during the lecture.

He'd made a clay pot, his first one.   He mailed it to President Bush as a
present.

President Bush didn't have time to respond.  His assistant wrote to Billy and
thanked him and said that whenever Bush waved his hand, he was saying
thank you to Billy.

Billy said, "And I saw him on tv today, and he waved one hand, then
the other.  That was a secret message to me.  It said "Thank you,
Billie."  "Very much."

Bill is howling, rolling on the floor pounding in the middle of this
poor guy's lecture and his "friend" was absolutely furious with him.

Sheeeeesh!!!

Small world.

A Real Musician is Born

Meet AnnaGrace.
Eight year old spitfire.  Blonde hair, blue eyes full of adventure.
When she was a toddler she would ride the family dog like it was a horse through the woods over to her neighbor's house.  Her mother would have to search high and low.

Now she rides horses.  Every week I get to hear another adventure. Her eyes ablaze, this little dynamo sputtering with excitement over a bonfire, a dance, a horse show.

She had talked about a boy the week before.  The next week she came in. She practically burst, "I wrote my first song!"

I smiled.  I was sure it was going to be about Billy and his lunch tray.

This epitome of girlish innocence stands like a rooster at dawn and spouts out
"Pirate walk the plank.
Into the shark's mouth.
Then you will be dead."

I howled with laughter.  It was just so good!  The tune was simple.  We figured it out on the piano and sang it together.  I showed her how to change keys.  She found "pirates" and we acted it out.

It became the studio theme song.  Someone will say, "I can't decide what to sing..." and I'll start tapping the keys..."Pirate walk the..."
"NOT THAT!".  Oh well.  Worth a shot.

I introduced AnnaGrace to the next student one evening and said, "This is the girl that wrote Pirate Walk the Plank."

After she left, my next singer stood in awe and said, "I feel like I just met someone famous."

AnnaGrace studies guitar.  She was studying with another student/friend.  It was hard for her dad to find a way to get over there, so the lessons fizzled.

She loved to take one of my guitars and she'd just play random notes and sing and say, "Wait, I almost have it!"  or just be happy with the song she'd found.

Lately, she's been asking me to teach her guitar too.  So, last week, she brought in her beautiful small six string.

She showed me she could play a G chord.   I got out her favorite song, and showed her there were G chords in it.  So, we decided to play and sing together.  When it was time, I'd yell out G and she'd pipe in with her guitar.

I have never seen her so focused.  She kept bringing her copy of the music over and saying, "So, let me get this straight.  First we do this line and it goes this way.  Then we drop down here.  I play here then you play here, got it?"

The song was "All The Pretty Horses"  a lullaby.   She decided to change the wording so it was "All the pretty ponies" because a big horse might be too much for a tiny baby.

"Hush a bye, don't you cry, go to sleepy little baby.
When you wake you shall have all the pretty little ponies."

"Now", she said, "What on earth does a baby need with ALL the ponies? "   "I think he would be happy with just one.   Oh well."

And off we'd go.

We played the song over and over, laughing.

At the end, she put her guitar down and said, "Wow, NOW I'm a real musician."

Hello world.  Meet AnnaGrace.  A real musician if ever there was one.

What I Want For My Birthday

I wrote this poem about Don Arenth.  A world class architect, a singer, funny as heck, my voice teacher's lover and a dear friend.

I thought of it tonight, because Thanksgiving is coming.  This year, I can also be thankful for my voice teacher, Mr. Petrich.  He was so kind to me, and was very generous to wasband and myself in his will.

I am humbled, touched, and miss him.  Humbled because we lost touch with each other, and it was my fault.  But, he remembered me anyway.  That's just like him.

Big, German man, imposing with a wicked grin.

Don...he was powerful, gentle, bigger than life.  He made everything feel like a party, more than a party.

We would go to Mr. P's house for Thanksgiving.  An amazing feast, German...who knew the Germans could cook turkey?  Mr. P would cook everything, and it was amazing.

One year, we go over.  We are sitting at the table, and Mr. P. is telling us about a student who annoyed him.  He called him on Thanksgiving day to ask him a musical question.  Mr. P. was furious.

Don said, "Yeah, I walked in, and here was Fred, fist f*cking the turkey."

That's Don.

Don contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion after a near fatal motorcycle accident.

I would go visit him in the hospital.  We'd read a favorite book together, "Towards Serenity and the Resolution of Grief" by Rusty Berkus.   It's a beautiful story book, with pictures.  Each page had a simple sentence or two.   A favorite of mine was "Weep what you must weep.  Not only for this loss, but for all other losses you have sustained in this life."

We'd stop on a page and talk.  Deep, beautiful talks, with tears, laughter, deep love.  Don would take my hand and say, "Everyone is afraid to talk to me about what is happening.  Thank you."

I would have walked across hot coals for that man.  One night we said it felt like a holiday, what could it be...and somehow ended up as National Beet Day.  Everything else seemed to be taken.  So, I made him a card.

I went and got him some sod from my favorite park, so he could feel grass in his fingertips, and we made a mini park for beside his bed.

Don, Mr. P., you are on the same plane again, and I can feel your smiles.  Thank you for all you are, all you have been.

The world was so lucky to know you.

What I want for my birthday

 

This time last year
you were dying.
Big eyes, whiskers like a muskrat,
a King with loving subjects.
We watched your breath like soldiers at campfire.

Last year, all I wanted
for my birthday
was to see your smile.
To know you knew,
to talk,
maybe for the last time again.

But you slept,
and I sat in a smokey waiting room
listening to dying people complain about food.

Birthday was so empty.
Christmas, New Years, National Beet Day,
empty-
filled with diapers and tubes
and icewater
-My mind when I was away
filled with when I could get back
My mind when I was there
filled with when I could get back.

Your hands patting mine-
we had the best talks those days
and how you worked to have them
how you worked to laugh, cry,
resolve, question

You were bigger than life,
a grand orchestrator,
and you were bigger than death
that slow acid bastard-
your room four concrete walls,
(Oh the rich colors You would paint them)
calling me to know more about God,
wishing I could see the Angels around you,
wishing you could see my park,
wishing we had been this close every day
not just at the end.

You must still be in that room.
Floating, detached...remembering
agonies of tubes and respirators
legs that won't work.
Your honesty, beauty, majesty
it can't be taken from this world.
It can't be made all gone like a glass of milk.

You must still be there-
mad that I haven't come.
And this year, you will wake up
to wish me Happy Birthday.

Matthew Edran

His smile

lights the corner of his mouth.

The drama of the darkness

zombies

eating the undead

logic

clicking out like cards

in a wheel.

"I am a dark soul.

I am not happy,

But I like being not happy."

This is his cape

his mask

a child

a child that knows

too much of the darkness

too much tumbling, tossing

too much torment

too much soul for those young bones.

But shining

never to be squelched again,

please, oh please dear God,

a smile

too shiny for a smirk.

deliciously licking out of the corner

of his mouth

his eyes,

a laugh

that runs around the earth

and comes back

with winds of Turkistan

and whispers of Tibet

I brought this smile into the world.

I serve it, search it,

humbled before it,

tending, .

Zombies claw

And darkness drips

into purple billowing galaxies.

In his hand

a deck of cards

with monsters, cunning in their craft,

imagination unleashed.

But that smile,

this child will be safe.

We are all safe

with this smile in the world.

A little light

from God’s window.

 

Jon Schuyler

He nearly didn’t come here,
This second son of mine.

His heart so sweet,
He’d go back to heaven itself,
rather than cause me trouble.

His hands are pudgy,
his nails hold the dirt,
and he thinks
at moments with no rhyme to them
to say
I love you,
Momma,
More than anything on earth.

Such a child is scary.
Oh God, please don’t take him back.
I know we’re here to break our hearts
and heal them, 
fill the cracks with shiny glass,,
but that one,
please dear God,
never put on my plate.

Wisdom 
is one thing,
and he has it in both pockets..
But that heart
that seeks and holds such goodness,
his laughing dirty hands reach out to You.
Please let me hold them for awhile.

We Gather Together

It's Sunday.  The big T Day is Thursday.  There is no turkey unchilling in the fridge yet.  I am so not into grocery shopping at this point.  There was this very kind lady on an e mail list that offered a Thanksgiving meal, the fixings, for someone on the list in need.

I thought, "My car is old.  I have old clothes.  I just gave Dan the handyman my turkey fund.  Maybe I can pass."  I wondered if needing to not shop qualified as needy.

Got an email from the wasband last night.  He is going to his what the heck is she for the big day.   I sat in shock.  We've been divorced, oh heck, long enough to not remember most of it, and he's come here every year.   Every year I got to hear how depressed he is and the same stories trying to impress the children and annoy me,  and my stomach would clench, once to the point where I was physically ill.  Fun.  But, hey, if we didn't do it, he'd be home alone eating peanut butter and the kids would be sad, which I admit, they have hearts of gold...so what the heck.  I would tell myself to buck up, he used to be fun, maybe this year.....   nope.

I wrote back, "Oh, it won't be the same without you!"  I hope I managed to make it sound like that was a bad thing.

This year, I get to spend it with my two favorite humanoids.  We can be relaxed and just have fun.  Wow.  I can't remember Thanksgiving ever being relaxed and fun.  Weird, funny, unreal, maybe.  Fun...not so much.  Relaxed, only to the alcoholics.

Growing up.  My mother was a holiday Nazi.  She made the most disgusting sweet potatoes ever on the entire planet.  She put in a whole bottle of rum.  That's it.  No sweetener.  Try that as a five year old.   You had to say "Yum" with just the right tone or she would go into a tirade.  And people pay for acting lessons.

I remember one year when I was first with Wasband o' Mine.  We came to their house first.  My mother had gone on and on about buying a water fountain for the dining room.  It added a touch of certain je ne sais qua...class....yeah, that's it...class to the joint.

It was plastic and had some Greek honey with an urn.  Mother dyed the water blue, and it cascaded over lovely, turning blue, plastic flowers.

It would have given a kitsch collector wet dreams.

So, tiny dining room, eight people around a table.  Water is pouring.   One person would have to get up, whole side of the table would have to move around.  Person would go pee.  Person would come back.  Whole table would have to move around.  Next person would have to get up.

Finally, in a wounded huff, my mother turned off the rainmaker.

Everyone had their assigned roles.  The men had to watch golf and football.  The women fussed.  Wasband decided to bring some dishes into the kitchen.   Poor Auntie M nearly keeled over.  A man!  In the kitchen!

They chuckled about that for at least ten minutes.  Knee slapping fun.

Then, we left that piece of Americana, and headed over to Wasband's house.

His mom was rather fond of the sauce, and an artist.  She'd been storing her paint in the oven.  She forgot and turned it on.  Luckily, nothing exploded.  But it didn't smell so great either.

The turkey was still frozen.  She'd forgotten to defrost it.  She'd managed to make frozen peas black.  She was there, at the table, with an electric knife, slicing off frozen turkey chunks and cooking them in an electric skillet.

She was a dignified woman, in her own unique way.  I barely knew her.  The conversation drifted to her disappointment in her new beau, otherwise known as Mr. Softy, and how his sexual dysfunction did not excuse him for not caring about her needs.
"Hasn't the man heard of cunninglingus?"  she asked, woefully.

Her youngest son didn't bat an eye.  He said, "Face it, Mom, what you need is a good fuck."

She didn't bat an eye.  She said, "Yes, I believe you are right.  But, I'm not going to get it with him."

I remembered thinking how this was almost Newtonian, an equal and opposite reaction in the Universe.  The exact opposite from the psychotic perfection we'd just survived, to this joyous chaos.    Equal and opposite.

It was so nice to be on the other side for a breather, though.