goloveyaself

[goloveyaself]

SO THERE I WAS…..

sitting in the Windmill Diner, John sitting across from me. I was 19, he was 26, and I thought that he was the best thing ever, and I was in love with him. And he went far out of his way to make sure I knew how much in love with me he wasn’t. So we’re sitting in a booth, ready to order our After-The-Sunshine-Pub breakfast---always 3 AM and always eggs over easy with bacon and white toast, buttered. Home fries….greasy, salty, lots of ketchup. Coffee. And me, gazing at John, with his 80’s porn-star mustache and pierced ear; his black leather vest. He bragged about his black-belt in karate. Love gushing out of my green eyes like energy waves penetrating through to his heart. I was blind in love with him. I was so sure that he’d feel it too, eventually. It had to be contagious. I knew that if I loved him enough, he’d have to love me back someday. Yet every Saturday night, after the Sunshine Pub, at the Windmill Diner….after we’d ordered our counter-attack against all of the alcohol we’d consumed that night, John, my dream man, would ask the waitress for change of a dollar…four quarters please, for the table-top juke box. And every Saturday night, as I gazed across the table from him, he’d play the same song; the same song every time; that same miserable song. The first line…”I’m not in love, so don’t forget it”. And it broke my heart….every….single….time. John. Fuck him.

[goloveyaself]

Someone asked me…What do you carry?

I thought for a while….

And thinking felt like a burden; I carry thought.

I searched my mind for other things,

And the searching felt like a burden; I carry searching.

And then my heart spoke up

Its broken pieces fused together

With the crazy glue of life

And I felt love.

I carry love; it’s never a burden.

[goloveyaself]

Love Hate

The taste in my mouth,

Bitter with resentment

And sour betrayal

Stinging my tongue with the acid burn of denial.

How much is you?

How much is me?

The familiarity of every man I’ve needed

To get away from.

Sometimes I know I touch

The tender places you hold

Hidden behind the frontal cortex

Of your nonsensical sensibilities of protection.

I hear your heart beating loudly

Desperate to be heard over the loud din

Of your patronizing intellect.

I imagine myself feeling your inner fragile

Soft to the touch like a favorite cashmere sweater

Yet as cold as winter

The frostbite of your soul.

My wish that you would unlock the vault

That surrounds your fragile heart

And perhaps we could find a peaceful

Place to land.

[goloveyaself]

The Things I Carry......

The Things I Carry…

Carrying grief; carrying sadness; carrying last night’s dream…always at the holidays…driving down the road toward my Mother’s house…the hillside ablaze in Fall colors although it doesn’t feel like Fall. The sun is out, shining brightly---I coast down the hill and see the house, it never looks quite right in these pre-holiday dreams. The house next door is different now; a huge façade has been fashioned around the side of the house and barn obscuring the actual house and yard. I’m thinking how strange it is---not as I remembered as a little girl. So much of life has passed by like clouds on a windy day---right in front of me and then gone forever; never another cloud like this last one. I carry the memories…Mom and Dad in the living room….the tree with the too-big lights and the fake fireplace and the always hidden last perfect present---the one I didn’t think I would get. I carry these scenes; I carry their love; I carry their damage. Always pushing it’s way in, just before Christmas.

[goloveyaself]

Stream of Consciousness: Unedited

I Shall Not Want…

I just can’t get out of my head today….ears screeching driving me nuts…I’m sure that I can cure this, I just haven’t yet…frowny-face. I feel feel feel ready…ready for a fresh start, new start, start over? No. A new perspective…not a do-over, a start-new-things thing. Move to California….Arizona…..do nothing, do something, work a little….where does the money come from?? Geographical cure? Cure for what? Cure for boredom…feeling stagnant….need to learn…something new, something not new, something different, something I already know. Love my work….job….clients….people….love the men….love the ladies….the groupwork. Want to do it all on my own….create my own….my own what? Something else…..work on a horse farm…a flower farm....a tree farm. I don’t know…..be a cowgirl…..love a cowboy…have dogs, horses, a motorcycle. Go camping, backpacking, climbing, go to the woods, the desert, go to dinner. Sit by the fire, love stillness….love freedom……be wild…be a badass, I am. I want to wander….adventure….be OK far away. I want something new…something exciting….fun….easy. I want a lover….a partner. I want to let go of wanting so that what I want can manifest into my reality. I want to not want. How do I stop wanting? I understand that focusing on wanting is the same as focusing on not having. I know that what you focus on expands. Ugh.

I will not want….

I shall not want…

I do not want.

[goloveyaself]

[goloveyaself]

The Soul Of Nature

Behind Every Two Pines Is A Doorway To A New World”

John Muir

The Soul of Nature

Nature, being outdoors, hiking, outdoor activity; we all know that it’s good for us. All of the research proves that the health and wellness benefits of being in the natural world are impressive. Spending time in nature is proven to decrease stress, lessen levels of anxiety and depression, lower blood pressure and heartrate, and quiet the mind. Immersion in the natural world can significantly decrease levels of cortisol in the bloodstream; cortisol is a stress-related hormone that can wreak havoc on the physical body when there’s too much of it coursing through our veins. Spending time in a natural environment has been shown to improve memory and recollection; to speed the rate of healing in the physical body. Hospital studies have proven that when a patient, recovering from surgery or illness, is in a room with a view of a park or a stand of green trees, they heal at a much faster rate than patients whose windows look out at the concrete of a building. Over 75% of the world’s medicines come from the forest; the rainforest in particular. There are organic compounds present in most trees, especially conifers, that increase the level of natural cancer-killing T cells in the human body; a walk in the woods every day improves the functioning of the immune system. Given all of this information, it certainly makes sense to get outside into the fresh air every day to improve our overall health and wellbeing. But then, what about the internal self? The part of us that is unseen, locked deep inside? The part of us that is the essence of what we are? What about our soul?

I grew up on a farm, and everyday of my young life was spent outside. My Mother would hold open the kitchen door and say “Get outside”, not as a command, but more as an invitation to adventure. I spent my days wandering through the fields, the woods, the gardens, the barn. I waded through streams and took dips in the cold water on hot days. I found snakes, and bugs, feathers, and mystery footprints in the mud. It was all magical to me then, and it remains so now. I’ve spent much of my adult life wandering through hot dry deserts, backpacking through canyons and over mountains. I’ve meandered through cool, damp, lush New England forests, and been awed by the giants in the redwood forests of the Northwest. I know, that for me, my sense of God, or the Divine, the Infinite Knower, Source, resides in nature. Nature is my Higher Power.

When we immerse ourselves in the natural world, away from the trappings and distractions of modern life, things become very simple. The noise in our head quiets, and our deepest selves, the yearnings of our hearts, can begin to be felt. We begin to feel smaller yet connected to something so much larger, something vast, something more real; closer to the divine, not just within us, but all around us. We being to remember that we are not apart from, but a part of, this beautiful, miraculous, awe-inspiring planet that we call home. We are a part of the miracle of everyday life. We breathe in the energy of the Earth and reconnect to what is true. And this feeds our soul. We come from the earth, and we will return to it in the end. Nature is our true home. So find yourself in the natural world as often as you can; get out for a hike, a walk, to sit in a park, or stroll through the woods. It will improve your health, increase your energy, and help your sleep better. But more important, for you and the whole world, it will strengthen your connection to the divine, to all of life, to your heart; it will create a sense of connectedness to something so much larger than the petty worries of everyday life. It will create a sense of peace, love and stewardship for the planet and all of life. It will feed your soul.

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”

Wendell Berry

[goloveyaself]

This Time Of The year

This time of the year,

every year,

though it’s been so many years,

the anxiety comes creeping in

like a low fog.

Then rises up

like a tidal wave

engulfing my spirit,

robbing my joy.

And the smell of turkey reminds me

of a Father’s last words…

“Am I going to be ok?”

And the pained response

from a frightened daughter’s lips…

“I don’t know”.

The last words his dying ears would ever hear.

And every year, this time of year,

I remember,

and wish I could take it back.

[goloveyaself]

The Rant

So tonight I took a bath. Yeah, I know, that sounds like maybe I’m saying that I never take a bath. I’m a shower girl actually, always at night, never in the morning. I take baths when I feel the need for some self-care and self love. It was still light out, I could have been outside, or reading a book, or doing some “busy work”, but instead, I decided to take a bath. I filled the tub with hot water, scented epsom salts, and some coconut oil. As I was lying in that tub I began running my hands all over my 61 year old body, and I was feeling very grateful for this body…..Strong, resilient, muscled, lean, healthy, beautiful. And also wrinkled in places that I never imagined could wrinkle; skin in places that is a little bit droopy...that’s right...droopy; an awful word. Droopy, crepey, like balloons on the mailbox 2 weeks after the party is over. There was music playing in the background….sexy, sensual music, and I began moving my body in a “lying in the tub swaying” sort of way. And I felt so delicious, desirable, beautiful. And so so grateful to be this person, who's been through so much life in this body, and whose spirit has evolved so much, who’s perspective has changed so dramatically because of the life experiences that I’ve had. This person who has wounds that have turned to scars; healed over, no longer raw. And I felt so calm and present; so right inside of this body and soul. And then I started to lose my grip on the present moment awareness; I started to think about how much, in spite of my “bad-assery”; in spite of my evolved and amazing presence, in spite of everything I’ve lived through, in spite of how much good work I do in the world, I struggle with this aging thing, this wrinkled body, the droop, the crepe, those fucking balloons. And it’s so unfair; so unfair to be this amazing spirit inside of this resilient body, and to have a part of myself feel diminished because I am no longer “young” or “beautiful” or “desirable” or “fuckable”. I am no longer the hot young girl that men once craned their necks to look at; that almost ran off the road trying to get a second look, that bent over backwards to get my attention. It’s a bitter pill to swallow. I never understood when I was a young woman, a 20 year old woman, a 30 year old woman, even a 40 year old woman, that I would actually become “old”, or “undesirable” or “unmarketable”. What is that concept anyway? Where do we get these beliefs from? Why does our culture worship youth and beauty….two things that are completely unsustainable.

We are all going to get old; if we live long enough anyway. And, as women, we are not going to live up to the “standard” of beauty in this world because beauty, for the most part, is digitally remastered daily according to the current “look”, or “fashion” or, (bottom line)...whatever sells the most products. As women we are bombarded constantly with the message that we somehow are either just not enough, or we’re too much. We’re too fat, or too thin, too tall, too short; our hair is the wrong color, wrong length. We aren’t good enough Mothers or wives, or daughters, or employees, or housekeepers, or cooks, or lovers or or or....too emotional, too aggressive, too manly, too sexual, too promiscuous, too loud, too demanding, and on and on and on. Magazines, movies, commercials, advertisements….go into any convenience store and look at the magazine rack….does any woman on the cover look even a little bit real? Where are the smile lines? Where are those little hairs that everyone has all over their face? Where are the fucking pores? I guess real women aren’t even allowed pores now. No one is allowed to be who they are; even the models we see are digitally altered and given someone else’s arms, or breasts or whatever else is currently in vogue. And then there are all of the advertisements for beauty products. Creams, and lotions, and potions that will make you look “young again” as though that is the measure of worth (because it is). And women are all out there buying these products, and getting “cosmetic enhancements” which include surgery. Cutting away pieces of themselves that the world has deemed “undesirable”. And we’ve all seen some of the outcomes….beautiful, mature women who have had so much cosmetic surgery that they look like caricatures of themselves; look like they’ve been stung by a hundred bees, or have lips that now look like some type of facial genitals. Or faces that are frozen, bland, free from expression of any kind; free from the wear and tear of an amazing life well-lived thus far. And how about the catalogs? I get lots of catalogs in the mail that are selling athletic clothing. Now, I consider myself to be a physically fit person from a lifetime of running, and hiking, kayaking, cycling, backpacking, being a gym rat for many years; and generally spending lots of time outside. And I am the women most likely buying the clothing in most of these catalogs, however, all of the models in the catalogs are 20-something hardbodies. And that’s great, I have nothing against looking at fit young women, however, how about having real people modeling the clothes? Real women who are fit, and healthy, and who work out, and they’re not 20 anymore? Real women, who are fit and have lines on their faces, and stretch marks on their bellies from birthing babies into this world (a power beyond measure, BTW). The real women who are actually spending lots and lots of money on these clothes; why not have those women modeling the clothes? And here’s another thing….why is it when a mature woman dates or marries a younger man, she gets judged so harshly? Oh….she must be a “cougar”. What? Has there ever been a name for men who date and marry younger women besides “lucky guy”? And when men date and marry much younger women, no one barely notices. Billy Joel, who is almost 70, just had a second baby with his 35 year old wife (who is only 2 years older than his daughter). He likely won’t live to see his kid go to high school, much less college. And who cares? Nobody. Good for Billy Joel. Lucky Guy.

A very wise and dear friend said to me today, when I was going on this rant, “you can’t judge yourself from exterior things, you have to know your worth and value from the inside”. Well, fuck, I KNOW THAT! And I embrace that! And I do value myself from the inside out; and I do love myself and know how awesome I am. And I am still soooooo fucking sick and tired of women being manipulated by the media, by weak and frightened men (#DonaldTrump), by politics, by all of these outside forces that cannot be ignored unless we all go live off the grid in the woods somewhere! I am sick of it! When I was a younger woman, I was ON FIRE regarding women’s rights. I grew up in the 70’s and yes, I burned my bra! And yes, I marched for a woman’s right to choose, and yes, I stopped shaving my legs and yes, I chopped off all of my hair, and yes, I had sex with whoever I felt like having sex with. I wrote articles railing against pornography, did a radio show about pornography and its relationship to violence against women. I stood up, I spoke up, and I was mad as hell! And then I dropped out; it was too exhausting, too draining, and I couldn’t exist in the world being angry all of the time. I couldn’t live with the constant irritation, like a burr under my saddle, rubbing a small raw spot bloody day in and day out. And I don’t want that raw spot now, but it’s there; it’s festering, and I feel like I’m being called to do something about this; something bigger, something powerful, something substantial and meaningful. I won’t burn my bra again, or chop off my hair (well maybe, because it does look cool short). I don’t know what I’ll do, however, I feel like I have to do something. Maybe I’ll just go love myself more. Or maybe I’ll start another fucking revolution. Who knows, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see……...rant over, for now…….

[goloveyaself]

The Call

The Call

Camera One: Picture a woman, maybe 65 years old. She has MS, gets around with a walker. The bathrooms in her very old house are the size of shoeboxes; very tough to get in and out of if you’re larger than a 12 year old boy or have a walker. She is and does. Now this woman, because she’s sick, (and because she’s sick, she feels much older than 65), she has to go to the bathroom frequently. Like a lot. And going to the bathroom is a very time-consuming activity; struggling to first get to the bathroom, then struggling to get inside the bathroom door with her walker. Then there’s the getting the pants down, or the dress up, or whatever while holding onto the walker so that she doesn’t fall. Eventually, after what may be almost an hour, she gets to plop her exhausted body onto the toilet, knowing that when she’s done, she will have to reverse the whole process to get out of the bathroom and back to her chair in the living room (which may as well be 100 miles and 2 weeks away). She will likely repeat this process three or four times before her day is done.

Camera Two: Picture a woman, maybe 37 years old, pacing around her kitchen, a loaded handgun on the table. She’s wearing nothing but a pair of men’s boxer shorts; likely her ex-lover’s. Ah, her ex-lover, he has broken her heart. She is devastated by the loss of him. She helped him move out; thought she was was the bigger one. Truly believed that it would help their relationship, if he had some independence, the chance to find his own way. He had moved in with her when he was only 25; from his Mom to her. Now he was restless; acting cold, detached. She thought she could rise above, help him. They looked at apartments together; her  always feeling that growing, gnawing anxiety in the pit of her stomach, the middle of her chest. But no, this would work. He would miss her so much; he would see what he had with her and he would want it back. She would help him; always help him. It seemed like the best thing. Until it wasn’t. Until Jennifer with her monstrous tits and stupid smile. She wasn’t even out of college yet. And she would drive his BMW, the same car that the woman drove almost every day when they were together. The woman would be getting morning coffee at Dunkin Donuts, and monster tits would pull in in the BMW. It wasn’t her car. And she would stupidly say hello to this woman, the one whose soul mate she was sleeping with, doing the things they used to do together in the bedroom and it made the woman sick to her stomach to think these things; the video tape rolling inside her burning brain. Ugh. She was driving his car. And she would say hello and the woman would want to jack her up onto the wall by her stupid neck and tell her…….it’s not your car…...he’s not your man. Instead she would just stare at her and hope that she might die on the spot, there in Dunkin Donuts while holding her medium regular extra fucking sweet.

Camera One: MS is a miserable thing, and this woman feels so alone, isolated even. Her children grown, her cheating husband long dead from a sudden heart attack. He lived long enough to get over all of his philandering ways, and just as he was becoming the husband she had always wanted, he dropped dead. So now she doesn’t remember his cheating and lying. She has forgotten his mean streak and sharp tongue that used to cut her to the quick at a moment's notice. She only remembers the love….”Oh, your Father and I were very much in love” she would say to her daughters. The younger one would always try to remind her... “Mom, he was a prick” she would say. But no, her mother wouldn't have it, she wouldn't hear it. They were in love, and he had been a wonderful man. So now she needs to get out of the bathroom, this sick and tired woman who is all alone in this big house. She is struggling to get out of the bathroom, knowing that in another few hours (if she can wait that long) she will need to get into this bathroom again. The doctor’s told her….drink lots of water, and she comes from that generation of people who believe every single thing that people in “authority” tell them. If the police, or the President, or the boss, or the doctor (or your cheating husband) says it, then it’s true. So she drinks copious amounts of water, maybe hoping it might cure her of this wasting disease she has acquired. This wasting  disease of the broken-hearted. And this makes the bathroom a place that she must visit often. And she’s sweating and tugging at her clothes, trying to get them back into place. The bathroom door is so narrow; she drags herself along with the walker; this life is hell for her. Sometimes she just wishes she would die in her sleep to end this misery; each day blurring into the next with the bathroom being her focus. Like a full time job; never a break from it; no time off. She makes it back to the living room drenched in sweat. Falling back into her chair, she drops into the restless sleep of exhaustion.

Camera Two: The younger woman continues to pace the kitchen. She sits at the table and spins the gun around in circles like playing spin the bottle, except she’s the only player and the only kiss coming her way is a bullet searing through her tortured brain. She picks the gun up and holds it to her temple. She’s suffering, her guts feel like exploding with this pain that has no relief. How could he do this to her? How will she ever get over this; he said he loved her; she believed it could never end. Soul mates. Forever. Together. She puts the gun down and rises from the table, walks into the bedroom. She sees the bed where they used to sleep spooned up against each other; where they used to make explosive love, melting into each other, disappearing into each other as though they were one person. Is he doing that with the girl with the huge tits now? Does he feel that way with her? Can she possibly bring him to that place, that spiritual oneness that they shared. Oh...My...God. The pain is  unbearable. Yes, she’s been hurt before, but never like this. He was supposed to be “the one”. She’s out of her mind with grief, the empty space where his love used to be growing larger and darker, about to consume her; swallow her whole. She goes back to the table, picks up the gun. Holds it to her temple, puts it into her mouth and wraps her lips around the barrel. She’s sobbing uncontrollably. Just pull the trigger; PULL IT! It will be so fast, she knows she won’t even feel it. BANG! Lights out; pain over.

Camera One: The woman wakes up from her short sleep; this short respite from the drudgery of her life of back and forth to the bathroom. The doctor’s won’t just give her a catheter and bag. She’d like one, but they want her up and about, walking as much as possible. They know that if they catheterized her she would sit in her chair and rot from lack of desire to live.. She doesn’t want to live without him. She doesn't know how to live without him. The night he died, and she returned from the funeral home, she said to her daughter, her youngest daughter…”well, now when he doesn’t come home, at least I’ll know where he is”. She said that. And her daughter told her “Mom, maybe God is giving you the chance for a whole new life”. She was only 51 then. Still young; still pretty. She could have started over, had a second chance. But she couldn’t do it; couldn’t live without him. “We were so in love, your Father and I” she would say. And this was true for her; the way she had chosen to remember it. And it would make her daughter sick, because she saw it, she was there for it, and she knew that it wasn't true. So now the woman is awake, and she has to go to the bathroom again. And she just wants to cry, because this is what her life has come to. And she thinks….”he would never have stayed with me like this; he would never have loved me like this”. And she begins the long journey to the bathroom, again, the long miserable struggle, for the third time today, and it is only just past noon. She thinks what she wouldn’t give for a pair of legs that work, and eyes that see clearly, and to walk without the help of a walker. She remembers when she could do that; when she was young, her body strong and healthy. What she wouldn’t give…..Please God, just let me die in my sleep, she thinks.

Camera Two: She can’t take another minute of this suffering; her world has fallen apart. What's the point in living? She picks up the gun again, opens the chamber to make sure the bullets are there. No turning back. She can pull the trigger and be done. No chance for this to happen to her ever again. No more pain and suffering. She puts the gun against her temple, she puts it back on the table. She crawls onto the kitchen floor and sobs, rolling around, writhing in this heartbreak; sick of herself, sick of the pain, sick of it all. She gets up and grabs the phone. Someone…. someone has to help her, make this pain stop, someone has to answer the phone. She calls a friend; no answer. Fuck! She calls her Sister; no answer. It’s meant to be that she dies today; no one is out there to help her. HELP ME she screams inside her head. She gets off the floor and returns to the table, picks up the gun.. she puts it in her mouth again; one shot, take out the brainstem. Done. Over. Her finger squeezes the trigger just a little. Her hand is trembling. She puts the gun down; picks it up again. Into her mouth, another squeeze on the trigger. She's scared; FUCK! SOMEONE HAS TO HELP ME; PLEASE FUCKING HELP ME! She puts the gun down and grabs the phone, tears running down her face; snot running out of her nose. She doesn’t care anymore; who fucking cares???? She dials her Mother; her Mother answers the phone. She cries into the phone “Mom, please, please help me….I’ve got a loaded gun, Mom, in my mouth...she’s blathering, barely making sense….”a  loaded gun, Mom, I can’t take the pain, can’t take it anymore, please”......

Her Mother’s voice breaks through her tears, interrupts her begging and crying and says simply to her, to this young woman who is putting a gun to her head, sticking a gun in her mouth, her Mother, her poor, sick, sweet Mother says….”Can you please call me back, I’m in the bathroom”.

The woman looks at the phone, her crying stops. She suddenly feels calm. She hesitates, thinks for a minute, then says…”sure Mom, I’ll call you back”. She puts the phone down on the table. She stares at the gun; she looks back at the phone. She gets up from the table, taking the gun with her. She calmly walks into the bedroom and puts the gun back in the case under the chair. She stands silent in the middle of the room. She thinks she’ll just take a shower now, get dressed, and get on with her day.

Camera One: A Mother, miserable and suffering in the tiny bathroom, all alone in her old house, just trying to get through another miserable day, and as she pulls herself up from the toilet once again, sweating and struggling; she doesn’t even know, that in her struggle, in her misery, she has just saved her daughter’s life.

[goloveyaself]

Nigga Luvva

(Oh I know, the title of this one is so offensive, but please, before you judge it, just read the story. It’ll make perfect sense.)

When I was growing up we never went anywhere. Well, I suppose that’s an exaggeration,because, sometimes, on a Saturday night, we might go to A & W Root Beer, where a girl wearing a spunky little outfit with her nametag on the pocket of her brown and orange apron hooked a tray of food onto the open driver’s side window of your car; we might go there for hamburgers, and root beer. And we’d get our big glass gallon jug refilled with frosty cold root beer to take home until next time we visited. And because we did go to Cape Cod a few times, like maybe twice, when I was a kid. But we never went anywhere that was far away, or required planes, or trains, or passports. Just Cape Cod; a road trip; not exotic. Anyway, I did not step foot on a plane until I was 19 years old, and it was to go to Florida to visit my “friend” who was actually this horrible girl who bullied me throughout middle school. In an act of basic survival, I decided to become her friend to save myself from being terrorized (or maybe murdered) by her. So, like a good little pet, when she moved to florida with her loser boyfriend, and after she called me a million times, I just had to go and visit her, or be made seriously sorry forever.

Florida was like a new world for me; the heat rising in wavy ripples from the black pavement, the palms swaying in the light breeze; the smell of the ocean somewhere far away because my friend lived nowhere near the beach. Actually, where she lived was in a run down used-to-be-a-motel shithole that had been turned into shoddy (and shady) apartments in a predominately black neighborhood (no, not really predominately…everybody there was black) in Davie County. This is where you live if you have no job (and no intention of getting one) and you’re donating your blood plasma to get enough money for food and beer; which was my friend’s current lifestyle and situation. Of course, going into it I was unaware of the living conditions and the lack of, shall we say, “vacation paradise perks” that I was walking into. I mean, c’mon, it’s Florida….sun and fun and beaches and bikinis and tropical drinks with little paper umbrellas in them and coming home with a badass tan. That’s what Florida meant to me; at least that’s what I saw in the pictures in magazines and on television. I did not imagine that it would be a broken-down whitewashed cement hotel with an empty pool that had a few slimy inches of filthy water and a couple of long-deceased frogs that had fallen in months ago; their swollen smelly bodies floating just above the leaves and dirt and who knows what else was in that soup. Welcome to paradise. The beach was so far away we had to take 4 different buses to get there. No one, that is besides me and my friend and her boyfriend, that lived at the apartment building was white (except for the seriously shady “manager” who was drunk most of the time; I got to be the unwilling witness of him getting the living hell beat out of him one night while staying there; another sweet visual to add to the Florida memory-box-slide-show). All that being said, however, I was, after all, just 19, so I made the best of it.

The population at this residential hell-hole was, for the most part, addicted to drugs. Cocaine, heroin, and more cocaine, was the order of the day, every day. Looking back on it now I realize that the comings and goings there were mostly of the illegal kind. Drug Dealers, drug buyers, addicts, thieves and the like wandered in and out throughout the day and night. Now, at that time of my life I was not adverse to a little taste of drugs here and there, but I remember not being too crazy about the idea of being in a drug induced haze in this particularly alarming environment. So I mostly drank a few beers as we whiled the nights away playing cards, spades mostly, listening to the Ohio Players “Fire” and “Skin Tight”, and eating peas and rice for dinner every night (I didn’t mind that because I had no intention of sacrificing any of my blood plasma for something better, like Kentucky Fried Chicken or Burger King). We played cards with some of the other “colorful” occupants of the apartments, but the one who really fascinated me was Charles.

Charles was tall, lanky, and very black. He had a glistening, giant-sized kinky afro and wore bell-bottom pants and platform shoes and was a living, breathing “Superfly” right off of the screen of the currently popular movie by the same name. He was sexy, he was flirty, he was a handsome black man who smelled “fine” as we used to say back there in the 70’s.  And I was a 19 year old farm girl from Connecticut, in Florida, far away from home for the first time, and Charles……well Charles, he became the object of my desire. And when my “friend” confessed to me that she was sneaking around behind her boyfriend’s back with him, he became somehow all the more desireable. So I would flirt with him, and he would flirt back, and I had absolutely no fucking idea what I was doing. I was a little naive skinny blonde farm girl from rural Connecticut and what was I thinking? What could I possibly have been thinking?

So there I was one night, flirting with Charles over yet another gourmet peas and rice meal, cheap beer, and a few games of spades. And I excuse myself from the table…”I need to get some air; I’m going for a walk” (wink wink) and out I go into the night. And there I am, this silly young girl, walking out into the dark of the evening, in a town I’ve never been to, in a state far away from the safety of my home, hanging around with these people who I really didn’t know (drug addicts, and dealers, and dangerous) and I’m walking down the street beneath these huge trees that cast shadows on everything that moved, and I’m just hoping that Charles is going to follow me. And as I pass under yet another mammoth tree in the darkness, his tall shadow precedes him, and then Charles himself, steps out to stand in front of me.  

You’d think that I might be scared, or startled, but no, no, this is exactly as I hoped it would play out, Charles and me, colliding in the dark of the steamy Florida night. Yes, this is exactly what I wanted. Charles wraps his long arms around my small frame and starts to kiss me; he kisses me hard, and my heart is beating wildly in my chest; he guides me (pushes me?) to the ground and puts the weight of his body on top of mine. I can’t move for a minute, and get a little scared, but then he eases off and starts to undo my pants, pulling them off of me and pushing them aside. And oh my fucking god I think this is soooo sexy; I am with this gorgeous black man on this sticky hot night in a land far far away from my little town and I am living large out here in this moment with this exotic man. On the ground. In the dirt. Sticks poking into my back. Exotic. Far away from home. And Charles and I are all wrapped up here on the ground, and he’s moving on top of me and I’m thinking this is heaven. And then he stops, he looks down at me, the totality of my 19 year old stupid, stupid young girl out in the dark with a man she doesn’t know. He looks down at me, into my eyes, and I get scared. And then it occurs to me that I am stupid, and this is what you read about in the paper, the girl that goes on vacation and disappears, and is never to be found. Her grieving parents appearing on the local news, their daughter’s high school graduation picture nicely framed behind them; she looks sweet, wholesome even. They plead for any information about their beloved daughter. She was really a good girl, after all. They all miss her at home; please; if you know anything…..The girl that ends up in pieces in a black Hefty bag on the side of the road somewhere that volunteers are horrified to find on the yearly May-day cleanup. Or at a lonely truck stop along a deserted highway. It hits me hard that I am about to become that girl, and now I am really, really scared. I can’t believe I could be so so very stupid. So fucking stupid. I start to sweat; I begin to tremble, but I try to hold steady; I don’t want him to feel my fear. I read somewhere that they like it better if they know you’re afraid. And Charles just looks down at me; he looks long and hard into my face, into my eyes that are beginning to well with tears. And suddenly, through the blur of my tears, I notice the slightest hint of a curl at the corners of his mouth. He stares long into my face and then says…

“Shit girl, you’re a nigga luvva”; he smiles and then he kisses me. And as I exhale slowly, and my heart relaxes back under my bird-bone ribs, it occurs to me that, yes, yes Charles, I guess I am.

[goloveyaself]

Ranger

My Little Man sleeping his way across the Rainbow Bridge. My heart breaks for the loss of him; his scruffy cat-killing problem-child dog self. And feeling his leaving opens the portal to all of the grief I’ve ever known. I didn’t expect to lose a Father at 25; to be Motherless at 43. And the cutting memory of each leaving washes over me like the waves of the coldest ocean freezing my heart open to the exquisite pain that only the deepest love can know.

09082016

[goloveyaself]

Roadside Roses

Roadside roses

Lying on the shoulder,

still wrapped in the florist’s cellophane,

Wilted and waning

like the dark side of the moon, on a summer night.

The fast-fading colors, red for love; pink,

White, the color of friendship.

Did your friend betray you?

Did your lover leave you?

And in your pain and suffering,

did you hurl this gathering of delicate petals,

as tender as your heart,

from the window of a fast moving car, left to die on the roadside

along with your dreams?

[goloveyaself]

[goloveyaself]

MOSAIC

In the magical glow of the first light of day,

when shadows lay low

and a secret world of wonder reveals itself

for a brief moment in time.

And suspended from the slender golden branches

of early Autumn trees,

a mosaic of webs sparkle and shimmer and shine,

collecting the morning dew,

capturing unsuspecting prey,

or existing only

to catch the eye

of the wandering soul

and return it to the wonder of the miraculous world.

copyright 2015

[goloveyaself]

I just love this!!!

Video

Dove: Choose Beautiful

[goloveyaself]

Breathe

What if, from across the expanse of a crowded room,

our eyes met,

and sliced through the wordlessness

like a cake knife through sweet buttercream.

And as I breathed out

you breathed in.

And in your languorous inhale

a tiny molecule

of my soul

stuck to the tip of your tongue.

I wonder...

would you recognize me?