Poignant Signs of Life

this picture, just because I love stemware & old china 

****I hope you think of me every time you feel air brush up against your skin, that moment of denial when you think I have gone, that it did not matter, because it did matter, it will always matter.


***I was sitting on a beach, when first struck by a flash of genius. Journal and pen in hand, scratching out raw pain, sadness, hope, joy, a plan, a path, an execution for that plan, guided by a seagull purging on lunch droppings, as he eyed me in puzzled stare. Legitimizing my hope that I might someday, actually, reach my destination, through the dark storm clouds which gathered like an angry mob, the clouds which reminded me of how long I had stayed in the weeds before being pelted by hail and delivered into a landscape that grew green and lush again, until it opened the door to a broad expanse of writing for me. 

     Writing is what happened when I was trying to escape from something else, taking me far away from any point in my life, transporting me into a farthest place than where I started. Every road that led me to detour, a dead end, (and in my life, turns out, there where a lot of those roads,) became compiled into a series of journal books. As opposed to the writer who sits steeped in stare, lost without words, I have endless dialogue, the story, my story, hasn't always been an easy one.

      I run to taste my sweat, practice yoga to harness my breath, write so words stay still and silent, these are the benefits to being on the front lines of soul searching, as each pivotal point in my life finds its way to a tag line for a journal, a book, a story, a blog, an essay, a repetitive motion. Small steps have seemed to legitimize my journey, to a final peaceful destination. I have approached people I might never have approached before, some remain, some I've since let go of. There is a sweet awkwardness to the moment you find a parachute for your feelings, and then you take the leap. (that long, close your eyes tight leap, where you are hanging onto a bungy cord for dear live)

My next life, well, I am hoping it will be minus the bounce of a bungy cord, riddled with romance, conjecture, and a life properly fitting of a Queen or Matriarch.

What one can decipher from the nude canvas of my face, is beauty, sudden sadness, gratitude, pain, forbearance, solitude, destiny, awkwardness, calm, panic, love, loss, strength, weakness, emptiness, fulfillment, passion, empathy, discernment. What one can see are the aches of life worn on my sleeve, as my fingers run themselves along the rim of my coffee cup, thoughts glowing through the early darkness of dawn, poignant, sharp, and repetitive. 

Turning the page, getting on with life, as my words pull together in paragraphs, strength narrates the darkest corners making them less intrusive, less harsh. Softness of the sun now breaking through on my doorstep, as New Year resolutions babble from my soul. Think I will head out the door,

running as if I am leaping for the moon.

 Winter is so theatrical as it throws back nine-degree temperatures today in absence of yesterday's negative numbers and nonbearing forceful gusts of wind. My teeth, a bit more unclenched today, my fingers, a bit more undrawn into the sleeves of my shirt, as warm blood surges through my body. The goose bumps on my legs are still there though, enough of a sacrifice to the gods of winter, my legs, so far from the life of summer that it's hardly even recognizable in the rear view mirror.

Good Bye Winter Already

Leaving the shelter of my bed, a space so hollowed this morning to the contours of my body that leaving it feels cold, cruel, darkened and uncomfortable. I touch my toes to the floorboards, inhaling as deeply as I can, breathing in the last of nighttime pleasure, as sunlight and cold floorboards illuminate my still not so morning eyes. A thin promise, in subdued tone, weeds out of the crevasse of winter, cold now falling off my bones as I wrap my hand around a cup of coffee so black its endlessness stretches across my tongue, temptingly narcotic as it saturates my taste buds.

My sneakers are looking achingly lonely and mud – caked from yesterday, as I dare the thought of what is going to be the difference in temperature (this morning) as my sorry little ass braces the thought of whether or not to venture out the comfort of my front door. This winter cannot possibly end soon enough for me. It is -20 degrees here in Cold Spring NY this morning, with 40 mile an hour winds. (Not exactly a paradise in my book)


Perhaps an extended yoga practice today would be a more suiting ritual, as frostbite on cheeks ( I have experienced that one before) never serves one as an added benefit to running in the cold. It is the top area near my cheekbones that always give me the concern.

 By now, you all know how much I love beginnings. And sometimes I can deal with endings too, because they usually lead to new beginnings. In-betweens, however, are impossible to wrap my head around, and after watching fifty - one winters come and go, I am certain that January / February is nothing but an endless in-between.  (the in-between of winter and final spring’s arrival)

Growing up in New York, I learned from a very young age that mid - winter meant still stuffing yourself into your puffy winter gear long after that winter gear has lost its luster. In fact, by soon to be mid - January, everything has lost its luster. The snow is no longer magical—it’s just cold and very persistent. There must be some important reason for the lasting of winter to even exist—and if anyone can think of one, I hope you’ll let me know. Otherwise, I will be eagerly ticking off the last days of January in hopeful anticipation of then speeding through February in hopeful notation of a very early spring. (And I do mean, a VERY early spring, please!) 

The thought of taking my mid life crisis to Europe at this juncture (today) simply drowns me in warmest pure fantasy; in the dark hush of my office space today I will sharpen that thought, keeping warm and spying through travel magazines passionately embracing the thought, maybe, hhmmmm, of an Autumn 2014 trip to Europe with my husband. The passion resonating through that smells, tastes, feels, and sounds like it would be truly earth shatteringly delicous. Groupon today will hold the key to a quick flyaway to Florida for next month, to escape, however briefly, the severity of this ungodly cold NY.

pic.twitter.com/TDBH33parl

Rainy Monday Blues

seaglass, find it at the beach, put it in a jar, or simply lay it on a plate on your coffee table

Truth always has this little habit of whispering back to me from the grave I put it in. Truth is, of all the things I could have been, the author/writer/blogger is the one that allows me to be anything and everything I always wanted to be.

The poet, the painter, the sculptured, the philosopher, the lover, the crier, the wounded, the healer, the loner, the forgiver, the runner, the yogi, the singer, the dancer, the ranted, the optimistic, the pessimist, the holy veil and the undertaker, the thinker, the creator, the eccentric, writing allows me to be all these things without ever having to leave the comfort zone of my keyboard. Fiction becomes non - fiction, non - fiction becomes, well, my genre of real life, and words become the beauty of the platform, as I carve away at life. Today I will make phone calls, write e - mails, make arrangements for the funeral, sign the death certificate, wipe the tears from beneath my black veil, and put my old life in the coffin just before they lower it into the ground, never wanting it to be rewarded with an eternal life. In between mouthfuls of air, I'll wipe away tears, and take note of the now unrecognizable mangled corpse of what once was. I'll hear the bantering slightly irritated note in the bird's voice outside my window, as he watches yet another drama production of my life pass before him.

The Ending of an Affair

(No, I am not having an affair, purely theatrical piece on this rainy Monday, after being soaked from my daily run, sneakers and thoughts both consummated with the mud)

The night I was torn from the pages of your life, you thought you left, but really, I had already left you. Your tears carved into my flesh, as you tried to hold the taste of my final kiss on your tongue. Snow was falling from the sky that night, as the holiness of your wants fell from your mouth, landing on my lips. Winter was always the hardest season, it left tracks in the snow of where we had been, a reason for someone to always find us. Every winter that passes I find a snowflake that reminds me of you, allowing it to melt on my tongue. The affair I dreamed of, well it was quite like this, I ended it, not you.

Yes, the snow doesn't fall anymore; you were the last snowflake that ever landed on my nose, as I stuck out my tongue, you evaporated on it. I watched you leave, felt your last touch beneath my sheets of pain, as the rain fell, and the frost in the air became you, became my deepest lose. It dropped to the ground in silence, my heart, as the train, your train, pulled away from the station. I took the diamonds from around my neck, and dropped them down the sewer. I dropped the ice of you. You thought you left, but, really, I had already left you....you just never knew 

Things That Make Us (often break us)

Inside, I feel immutably foreign today.  I hate the cold, the winter, the humdrum of it all, inevitably, also, the hum of snow blowers, the clanking of snow shovels scraping the pavement. I hate the cold raw wind, the icicles, the thought of a snow fort, licking snowballs, the squishing of rubber boots, wiping my nose on my gloves, then being left with, my nose, raw and red.

I hate the cold leather seats in my car, the waiting for the windshield to defrost so I can drive (safely) because I am going to drive anyway, either way, eventually, toggling seamlessly between welling up with tears over a song on the radio and flipping my very best bird at the guy behind me honking his ass off because the light turned green and he can’t wait another nanosecond for me to actually realize, that the light, has in fact, turned green. I have never quite understood how to integrate that part of me that wants to remain unaffected, and the part of me which seriously considers killing someone. 

There is some part of me (possibly a self - loathing part) that feels vaunted by surmounting the daily challenges involved in making a life in this very punishing place called winter. The beach is my favorite place in the world, so I just lie when asked how my life is, how my day is going. (It is cold, frigid, snowy, icy, unbearable, dark, dreary, and painstakingly void of sand, flip flops, and bikinis.) But really, does anyone out there really care? So with respect, I simply reply, “Life is good, and I am fine.” (I am hoping for an early spring, and the first sprung of a purple crocus head in my garden)

How 2013 Ended

So, more than not, I think over 2013, and think, the burden of bullshit that I have had to black marker off of my year calendar now sits happily, NOT, on my 2014 calendar. A haploid of changes took place in my life, some good (I got remarried), some not so good, (marred by petty envy, dictated moral codes, jealousies, and someone else's undue stress and unhappiness or baggage, slowly seeping into my life seat (you know how that goes, just grab a box of Kleenex and cling to it)

Sadness often beat the loudest drum for me, because it has such an unfair advantage over me, sucking my eyes and thoughts so dry, that there was never tears left for happiness, the ones you cry at weddings, baby first steps, and kids moving up and out (leaving an unattached string, finally, to my wallet)

I slept better at night, though, still, admittedly, I shoot up in bed in the dark of the night from a dead sleep, like a propane tank on fire (ghosts of past still haunt at me, at times)

I moved, I moved - in, put my clothes on hangers in the closet next to his (my new husband's), admittedly, I shoved all of his clothes over into 1/3 the space, so I could have control over the 2/3 space left. (My clothes really warrant 2/3 spaces)

I increased my yoga practice, breathed deep and deeper, postured better, held & balanced better, became amazing at "crane", and oh, my 'corpse' is identical to any man or woman lying stiff in a coffin...in perfect peaceful surrender~!

I accepted, I handled, I managed, I forgave, (alright, maybe the forgave not so much, but I gave it one sure thumbs up try, I forgave the jerk in the antique jewelry store right before Christmas fro the being the biggest asshole on the planet. I really felt that THAT was very big of me)

I ran everyday, my worn out sneakers will testify to that.... except the day the blizzard arrived where I slipped on the F****** ice patch UNDER the snow when I left to go shovel the driveway. That day, I just muttered, "screw the gods of winter, let me go back inside and sip hot chocolate."

I bought sex toys, oh yes indeed, I did. I put the batteries in them (AND bought backup batteries, just in case) and used them with my husband.  Pretty girl next door, I am no more! Now I am armed and dangerous, with a vibrator and French Maid Costume. (Oh, and you got to wear the heels)

Looked at my divorce papers one last time, wiped at the signatures, just to verify they were still permanent ink, then rid that abusive asshole life goodbye (sorry kids)

I flew a lot. Realized I may be one of the few that baths daily, or purchases 'middle seat' tickets. On one back - from Denver trip, the wing looked pretty damn enticing if I could only have opened the window without reducing cabin pressure thus sending the plane into a nose dive, I would have climbed out and camped out on that wing until we landed. Not to say I do not like people, but no, not ones that pass wind on an airplane, while sitting next to me. That is just so outdated!

I had the stomach bug of the Century the day after Thanksgiving that lasted until Monday. (Do the math) There was more vomit and other bodily expulsions then I can ever remember cleaning up after, after raising three children. I mean it was like a tsunami hit, and it hit me hard, square in the gut. Lost six pounds, (that apparently my sister had wanted to loose), so I took six back from her.

In all, I learned to like myself, to forgive myself for mistakes, and for a bucket of bad choices that sat as bricks on my shoulders. I learned to take care of me, because, like it or not, no one can ever care or love you, more than you yourself can or do... 

2014, Bring it on, I am armed and ready to take you on!

Victoria Secret Red Alert

      Hey Ladies, (and Gents, remember Valentine's Day is coming)  Victoria Secret's Semi - Annual Clearance Sale began yesterday

Buy online, much more inventory selection and sizing, and NO pushy crowds. Found shopping at the store yesterday was a disaster, and not many size smalls were available for lingerie items and garters. Bras where everywhere, but thrown in heaps you had to pluck your way through ( after everyone else's plucking had been completed) it was like a bad buffet at a Florida breakfast chain......minus any flys of course. Buy online, it is like a bountiful feast, minus the crowds, pushing and flys!!!!! My lingerie was marked down from $68 to $19 and $29...garters were gorgeous at $22.....

Bullshit from Childhood

Shoveled my ass off this morning, thank you Lords of Winter after that snow dumping of overnight. I needed the yoga afterwards just to get my blood warmed up, as Cold Spring NY was 2 degrees at 7:30 this morning. (I need a beach, and I need it fast!)

 Some of Life's Bullshit from Childhood

Just for the record, my mother loved my brother, and, sometimes, she loved me...but I suppose there are many of you out there that also grew up as "second class citizens." See, my mother hated ALL children, even her own children (a fact she will tell you herself if given the chance) except for, you guessed it, my brother. My brother died June 2005 at age 45 of Ewing’s Sarcoma, a cancer he was diagnosed with only eight months prior to his death.

 When he died, my brother's amount of love, well, it was transferred over to my youngest "unexpected" sister.  The sister who was born out of a need to try to keep my parent's marriage together (it failed, by the way, anyway, a very nasty long divorce followed) She was number two on my mother's love list, as she rose quickly to number "one and only" after June 2005. The other three of us, well, the same reserve that was never there for us, still wasn't there for us, but now we were adults, and as such, got real love from other adults. Pathetic isn't it, how your childhood haunts and theatrics are carried into your adult life, nestled right there on your shoulder, in the invisible backpack you carry with all of your bricks in it. 

We were starved, but mostly for love and attention, as dad didn't have much too offer us either. It is often stunningly amazing how we even function as a part of society at all, given our lack of good breeding. Not all women make good drivers, or, apparently, good moms. The mom part is more surely the one that should come with a required needed pass or fail license attached to it. I blame a lot of this on the teachings of the Catholic Church, in particular, the Old World Irish Stoic Catholic Church ways...where birth control is forbidden, and if by god, god gives you five kids, or twenty, it is a blessing. (It was never a blessing in our family) It was an epic failed life plan as far as my mother was concerned. My dad just went along for the ride I think. When it got bumpy, so did he. Children should be seen but never heard hung like a banner in our home from as young as I can remember. 

 I only remember grandmother hugs, and, only, from one of my two grandmother's. Turns out my other grandmother had the same disease my mother did when it came to children. It is surprising in fact that I remain as well balanced an adult as I have turned out to be, given the bump -  jerk ride of my childhood. So people, love your children like its no one’s business, or they will carry the haunt of it forever, and then some. I still wake at night from the chill of it all...

2013 In a Shoebox

Rockefellar Center
So, more than not, I think over 2013, and think, the burden of bullshit that I had had to black - marker off of my 2013 year calendar now sits happily, NOT, on my 2014 calendar. A haploid of changes took place in my life, some good (I got remarried), some not so good, (marred by petty envy, dictated moral codes, jealousies, and someone else's undue stress and unhappiness or baggage, slowly seeping into my life seat (you know how that goes, just grab a box of Kleenex and cling to it)

Sadness often beat the loudest drum for me, because it has such an unfair advantage over me, sucking my eyes and thoughts so dry, that there was never tears left for happiness, the ones you cry at weddings, baby first steps, and kids moving up and out (leaving an unattached string, finally, to my wallet)~

I slept better at night, though, still, admittedly, I shot up in bed in the dark of the night from a dead sleep, like a propane tank on fire (ghosts of past still haunted at me, at times)~

I moved, I moved - in, put my clothes on hangers in the closet next to his (my new husband's), admittedly, I shoved all of his clothes over into 1/3 the space, so I could have control over the 2/3 space left. (My clothes really warrant 2/3 spaces when having closet debates)~

I increased my yoga practice, breathed deep and deeper, postured better, held & balanced better, became amazing at "crane", and oh, my 'corpse' is identical to any man or woman lying stiff in a coffin...in perfect peaceful surrender~

I accepted, I handled, I managed, I forgave, (alright, maybe the forgave not so much, but I gave it one hell of a sure thumbs up try, I forgave the jerk in the antique jewelry store right before Christmas for being the biggest asshole on the planet. I really felt that THAT was very big and forgiving of me)~

I ran everyday, my worn out sneakers will testify to that.... except the day the blizzard arrived where I slipped on the F****** ice patch UNDER the snow when I went to go shovel the driveway. That day, I just muttered, "screw the gods of winter, let me go back inside and just sip hot chocolate." And so I did~

I bought sex toys, oh yes indeed, I did. I put the batteries in them (AND bought backup batteries, just in case) and used them with my husband. Pretty girl next door, I am no more! Now I am armed and dangerous, with a vibrator and French Maid Outfit and a hadnful of other unmentioned novelties. (Oh, and you have to adorn a pair of high heels, why do anything only half heartedly?)

Looked at my divorce papers one last time, wiped at the signatures, just to verify they were still permanent ink, then rid that abusive asshole life goodbye (sorry kids)

I flew a lot. Realized I may be one of the few that baths daily, or purchases 'middle seat' tickets. On one back - from Denver trip, the wing looked pretty damn enticing if I could only have opened the window without reducing cabin pressure thus sending the plane into a nose dive, I would have climbed out and camped out on that wing until we landed. Not to say I do not like people, but no, not ones that pass wind on an airplane, while sitting next to me. That is just so outdated!

I had the stomach bug of the Century the day after Thanksgiving that lasted until Monday. (Do the math) There was more vomit and other bodily expulsions then I can ever remember cleaning up after, after raising three children. I mean it was like a tsunami hit, and it hit me hard, square in the gut. Lost six pounds, (that apparently my sister had wanted to loose), so I took six back from her.

In all, I learned to like myself, to forgive myself for mistakes, and for a bucket of bad choices that sat as bricks on my shoulders. I learned to take care of me, because, like it or not, no one can ever care or love you, more than you yourself can, or do... 

2014, Bring it on, I am armed and ready to take you on!

( An Open Letter ) Yes, I Married Your Father

When will three grown up children realize that after fifteen years of being widowed, their father is entitled to a life? He's entitled to have made the very, (apparently disconcerning, disjointed and very selfish) decision, to get remarried, and to me. When will these grown up children come to understand that I am not the catalyst to their unhappiness, but rather, I am the catalyst to their father's now blatant happiness, and brimming ear to ear smile? When do they ever get the right to be judge, jury, and executionist, with my head on the chopping block? Seems a bit trite and unfair pleasantries at this stage of life, to feel you have the right to keep the ghost and haunts of your father's past life in check.....think, that maybe, he has a right to some very overdue happiness and companionship enter into his life.......even if it makes you envious and unhappy. Seems, one would think, that his happiness at some point should become paramount, against all odds.

To My Stepchildren,
You all grew up, moved out, moved onward, got married, (got divorced), had children, moved to different states, and succumbed to very content and financial well accumulated and advantageous lives.........why, of why, oh why........can't he? (your dad that is) I am not your mother's replacement, I am your father's second wife and joy. I am your father's chance of a life that he had been stripped of. I am his ability to smile, to laugh, to appreciate, to love, all over again. Yes, people can fall in love again, without ever tainting a past love. I did not take your mother from you, life did.....when will I ever be relieved of paying for that sin, that old debt? Please someone notify me when that day will arrive, if ever? In the meantime, I will continue to love your dad, as he will continue to love me, as we both, will continue to love all of you.

To My Children
You all grew up, finished college, married, moved (on and upward), borrowed money (failed to ever pay it back), asked for favors ( had them all fulfilled in the end by me), bartered and borrowed your individual selfs through relationships with me, asked of me to support your efforts with your own dad ( the abusive one to me), and, yet, you still feel the need to judge my life and decisions, by your strict moral codes of conduct (not quite the same ones I recall you adhered to in your college days, hhmmm, the ones I bailed you out of more times than I care to remember). At my age, I knew what I wanted, what I was doing, and to finally run the hell away from the haunts of my old marriage ( yes, the one I lived in with your dad, one riddled with  twenty five years of abuse). Seems it was finally time to let me out of the prison, give myself some needed air, to breath, to run, to jump, to yell from mountain- tops. When will you all realize, you have no right to judge what you did not live? That right is solely owned by me. You all got out, got away, and that was always my shared right too. A right to begin new, fresh, to take care of me, (after all, I took care of all of you for years, that's what moms do). I had a right to fall in love and get remarried, to feel alive for the first time in as many years as I can count. I had the same right to happiness, as you all did, and do. I had a right to follow through with it, and find peace with someone new.

So, please, would all of you please educate me, as to when you all felt the entitlement and privilege to wave a magical wand, and dictate to us how our life should be handled and carried on? 

New Year's Eve Renderings

As always, I am writing to you on New Year’s Eve again, where I  am mulling over evil, humanity, and healing. It feels even further from the loft space of last year where I spent many candle-lit hours writing and sunrise filled mornings processing life’s journeys. It feels far from the expensive cherry wood  floor in Connecticut I collapsed on after hours of painful and unshared empathy. This is my new floor — it doesn’t yet contain those moments, those memories.

 I moved. Again. Began life anew, again. Got remarried, in 2013.

Thankfully, I don’t have to put all of my belongings in my car. I have unpacked them for the last time in one town/village and need not to ever again unpack them somewhere else. The process is nostalgia-inducing, as it seems impossible to think without gazing at old photographs and meandering through old memories, past hauntings and renderings. The memories that fall out of boxes as I still unpack are those of times before digital cameras and shutterfly, making them feel even further away. They are other lives, past lives. The photos are spread across this new floor, waiting for a decision on which ones I will put on the wall. Which memories belong on the wall of my new life and which ones will go back into the shoe boxes they emerged from?

As you know so well yourself, part of me deeply desires the transient life. I long to move without the shoe boxes containing memories; to move with only necessities. Yet, upteen moves, thirty years, seven towns, and three children, and a second marriage later, I find myself back in the same memories I abandoned in what seems like a life time ago. I relish in the uncertainty of the newness of all of this, yet, this New Year’s Eve is different.

This is an effort — for the first time — to find (or create?) a little more certainty in my life. I joke to friends that I want to put some roots down. I dislike the terms “settling down” or “putting roots down,” even though I borrow the latter for my own metaphor of growth. I am not sure how many “roots” we have in total to put down, but I’d like to put a few down here. I’d like to feel safe, to build a life, to build a home, to watch as the next chapter of my life unfolds. It all begins with adjusting to this new floor, and view from the desk I now write from.

Do you ever enter a new space (life) and feel overwhelmed with everything that could unfold there? With the life you haven’t yet lived? I wonder, in my new writing room, what I will experience in the confines of these new four walls. Will I whisper words of love? Will I grieve a loss I haven’t yet fathomed? Will I conquer self-doubt? Will I struggle? Will I embrace self-love? Will I accomplish goals I haven’t yet set my mind to? Will I mourn my transient self? Will I long for lakeside beaches or sandy surf, or, perhaps, a log cabin retreat? Will I feel at home?

What challenges and joys will I celebrate and process in this room? On this floor where I sit, clicking away on my laptop?

I’ll start with placing the images of freedom on my computer and a past history – back into the shoebox. These photos will mix with cards filled with caring words from friends, expressions of love and anger from past relationships, and sympathy cards and apologies already contained in these boxes. If the images and the boxes containing them are tucked away, the floor space is clear for new moments, memories, and a new chapter for me to explore. It will be clear for my laptop and myself to begin to type out the beginnings of a newest life, a brand new chapter of the book of me. A new partnership, new passion, new truth, new atonement, new hope, new sorrow, a new near perfect bliss of second marriage, and how the world can sit in new light, if we simply allow ourselves to give in to the opportunity of all of it.

Bringings of 2014

laces, left, lost, and abandoned...........................

I don’t know, here on the threshold of the coming year, what 2014 will bring. Like most years, I imagine it will carry its share of pain along with the joys, and I’m sure that keeping my temper and equilibrium after one too many nights spent worrying about it all will be a challenge. There will probably be moments of exhaustion, of bleary-eyed apathy, of downright frustration.

But then, hopefully, there will be many more moments of grace, when I will just learn to breath deep, and move on. I am not so sure I believe in destiny. I think what I believe in is making better choices. I battle with the notion that things are in some way preordained. The concept of life unfurling " just as it should be," and according to some magical plan beyond my comprehension, sounds truly amazing, but, better choices along the way really rolls the plan along. Firm believer, also, that, at any stage of life, it is important to find your person. To find your beacon. Find your partner. Find your path. Just one person, who believes you are not F******crazy to want to be an astronaut, or, better yet, a writer, whom sits around nude, working her thoughts.  A person who holds your magic. And shares in it.
Someone who never, turns off the light !

Sunday Running

The earlier I begin the day, the quieter the sound. Reverberations of my own renderings, caught in the patter, as sneakers hit the pavement. Trees lay still, sky asleep, mornings dew takes rest upon my eyelash. Sneakers thump to the sound of the trickling of my sweat, as a deer invades my secret place. A blinding force spreads out like kerosene - fed fire pooling in my cheeks, continuing in a gully across my breasts...gushing between my hipbones, as heat is driven down my torso...in the heat of the moment my sneakers are on fire. Cool crisp morning air fans my flames. Muscles tighten as tendons spring into action, expanding a needed release just above my tailbone. My head prorates forward, signaling that my brain needs to arrive before my legs.  My sneakers know to keep moving, if they stop, they'll wake from this euphoria........

The "Hookup"

The sex still fresh, yet so are her fears and doubts that this sudden approach to seduction is even attainable. Advancing now, even faster than her heart can understand, allowing the destitute of change to somehow shrink her, as her skin absorbs, then drinks away, the last of any forgotten inhibition. Managing to stay serenely aloft he steers her through this same inhibition, as his hands and fingers navigate her flesh. Expertly slicing through her own self, into this blinding space where she is now orbiting the sun.  Her tongue still lingers, after all, he bought her countless drinks at the bar, paid for the cab ride home to her apt, he climbed six flights up the airless narrow stairwell just to be with her. This must be real, this time. His blood vessels expand, as a howl of alarm now pierces from him, as her tongue glides and rides uncontrollably. Remembering all the while that a man’s standards drop quite a bit when he is horny. Still, she allows the seductiveness of her tongue to linger, approaching and subduing the howls that still escape from him, before ending with a final kiss on his cheek. The end, she knows all too well, is much more abrupt than all the beginnings combined, the intensity of it all makes her shudder.

Days later, she will write him a letter. Without saying good-bye, without a singular word, he will have it returned to her “address unknown.”

Forward Momentum

You can only move forward in life, I learned that after a very failed attempt at trying to move backward. Backward, the roads are always blocked by huge concrete barricades, too tall to climb, too sturdy to drive your car through, too thick to ever punch your way through. Forward, is an open and endless road.......a very valuable lesson in survival !

The Craning of Sex

My bed is pressed up against the wall, doubling as my couch, a slight throbbing in my head holds me to the wine of last night, my new apt, my new life, and the wine I drank in my dreams, as I departed the bar with the man whose breath still feels slight against my shoulders. I lie in bed just a bit longer, enjoying the feeling of well – being, still perched in my dreams. Starring at the wine bottle now laid on my floor, the man reappears, his tongue probing long and hard, as I try to catch my breath. Tasting the red wine on his lips, his shadow walks back into the wall, like some riddle I am suppose to get. As I turn the page of the book I am reading, a breeze causes the curtains of my hot apartment to billow out, I stand up wrapping them around the folds of my naked body, last night feels unreal, and the dream vanished. Drugged by the morning sun, as a bead of sweat settles in my navel, and once again, I think about the sex. I discard the curtain, the sarong, and replay last night over and over again in my head. The suffocating heat has me lying back on the mattress, as the shadow of his face resurfaces from my walls, separated only by the billowing of the curtain. Giving myself more room to linger in the after effects of sex, trusting that somewhere again his image will soon appear. My nudity is now on display for all to see, as I crane my head further out the window to the street below. A man looks up, and smiles at me.

(Funny, how I always seem to dream in color)

Self Portrait of Nakedness

My sneakers are still wet from the sweat of an earlier morning run. My throat still thirsty from my own salt, as I pour myself a glass of much needed water. My yoga mat still lies in temperament on the floor. My life, entirely made of glass. The day has overtly turned to a frigidly cold winter day, forcing my brain cells into a freezing exhaustion. Writing is always about what I know and what I see, then navigating that dark area in-between the two is what brings forth for me, the clarity. For today though, I cannot understand one ounce of what my brain is telling me. The sex and the sin, the rhythm and the verse, the philosophical, the unseen, the real, the imagined, the me, the you, the afflicted lover, the past, the future, the creative, the reserved, the fiction, the non – fiction, all are not happening today, as the cold has frozen even my ability to hit my keyboard in proper word formation.

Naked is to be oneself, nude is to be seen by others. Naked is always the self – portrait!

Depression

 a bit of sparkle

The heart was no place to leave the blades piercing her soul, slicing her flesh, as the resounding sound of madness echoed throughout her head. His footsteps hardened in the distance. His betrayal left and then carried away with the tide. She collected every sharp knife in the house, and threw each, individually, into the sea. One knife, one blade, one life, as seaweed attached itself to her lost hope, and the turning, of yet, another page. The salt from the ocean lay like bitter tonic on her tongue, as sea salt spray washed over her face in acknowledgment of falling tears. When the blood of a woman's heart is something she no longer drowns herself in; when she no longer wears self - doubt and loathing as her life vest. When life happens, life changes, and she becomes herself. The bitter sweet, the bitter blue, when all the narrative is gone, what she is let with, finally, is hope, and that hope becomes a powerful thing to cling to. When the heart beats so fast you need to run, just to keep up with it!

Grown up Christmas

Currently, I am a little afraid of you Christmas. I've worked hard not to let you dictate the rest of my life. However, I'm scared that by befriending you again, you'll force yourself into the driver's seat (yet again), and my life will be taken over by a ghost of Christmas past. So, as I seek to befriend you, go easy on me this year, okay? 

Merry Christmas to all my ghosts and haunts of Christmas...........

I use to think that the biggest moments in life occurred on a large life scale, - the marriages, the births, the deaths, the career milestones. But, paging through my notes on life, I am reminded that more often than not, it's the smaller moments - the tiny details, random ones, that hit the hardest, make you the saddest, make you the happiest. They all leave you somewhat changed, and thinking, forcing you to own up to all of your realities.

A Shortened Piece ( of essay)

My new life needs to be in an old fashioned apartment, quaint, with shutters, like one you would find in Paris, or inside an etched building in NYC. Where my shoes will lay abandoned near the front door, street noise will filter about the walls, and my apartment will be so hot, that the backless sundress I am wearing makes suggestion of the curve of my silhouette, as the sweat has all but the halter tie at my neck clinging to my flesh. How it will then start, over dinner, at a secluded hole in the wall restaurant, where the brick and mortar stairway leads one down to a basement garden bar. The noise of the street above, hydrangeas dancing near the windows. The chef, the waiters, the diners, will all speak in and out across the tables, across me, as I drink another glass of wine, before setting my eyes at the view at the opposite end of the bar. The smell of garlic fused with herbs and white wine will reach my nostrils, as wine travels the length of my lips. Watching him, his legs no longer able to set properly, as he shifts his weight, bearing slightly off balance as he makes his way along the length of mahogany wood. My fingernails will rattle on the edge of my glass, as I feel the warmth of his breath behind me. The interlude will begin, introductions exchanged, as presumption will overtake the both of us. Part of me will know for certain that the night will never end. Yes, that is how it will start, on a hot and humid night, over garlic smells and wine, and then he'll leave in the morning and take the metro to work. We will pick up where we last left off, a few varied times a week. Yes, that is how it will start, groping in the dark that leads to my new life, my new apartment, I will be barefoot drinking Spanish wine until I can't remember.