My Place, My Words, My Passion

Went to Wal-mart today and bought eighty dollars worth of crap. Two big packs of molded-plastic turquoise hangars, eighteen for two bucks. I got bath towels, a stack of four cheap ones, thin and quick to dry, for the lake and pool. I bought my four year-old a kickboard and a Kai-Lan video. I found some comfy, stretchy yoga pants, wonderful in their polyesterness; flattering in a deep brown. Fall colors are coming out now, those are my colors. Bought middle child a bright tye-dye t-shirt and picked up my third hose nozzle for the summer, they keep breaking, I keep buying them. Mist, shower, jet, soaker....
First thing I saw when I walked in was the markdown houseplants, big ones, like yucca and palm, plants that can really fill a space. I picked a palm, the dark green glossy leaves glistened with leaf shine. I worked in a factory greenhouse for a few months in college, and I can tell you, its not pretty. A plant starts its life as a cutting, stuck in a pot, watered, dipped in root stimulator, fertilized and left to grow. They are off like a shot, exploding roots overnight and with new leaves within days. Once a week, Mexican men in white jumpsuits and masks float through the seven football-field sized greenhouses and spray pesticides all over each and every plant in the place. The big, rumbling fans come on for awhile and then we all go back to work. The stench was thick, burned the eyes and was bitter on the tongue. Within a couple weeks I requested to not work on the spray-days. I planned to have kids someday, I wasn't going to eat their poison and risk damaging my goods.
When the plants got to be big enough to ship out to Wal-mart, we the worker-bees hand-cleaned the most prominent leaves on each plant, wiping it down with a rag drenched with leaf-shine, also stinky, toxic stuff. I was the only one who wore gloves.
So, the big palm I bought is about to have a better life, in my house by a big window with a view of the stone patio and bluffs above. The next big rain I will put it outside to clean-off...detox.

Gosh, today was a nearly-perfect day, and it was close to not happening at all. We were due in Wichita yesterday for Easter festivities and a funeral and I spent all morning packing my stuff, stuff for my three kids, and snacks for all. After much ado, we loaded into the car and head out.
We had tried to take the better of our two cars, but at the last minute, it had a flat tire. About a half a mile down the road, my van gets a flat and sealed the deal. We werent' going to go after all. We'd been getting menacing calls from our store about problems that really needed to be dealt with by us, and the two flat tires reaffirmed that we indeed should stay and address the issues at our store and get tires fixed.
Easter morning started beautifully. My two oldest daughters handed out handmade Easter cards and my husband made us pancakes. We hunted for eggs and goodies after breakfast and then sunk-in to a relaxing day on the patioe The kids munched chocolate almonds, painted ceramic eggs, watered the gardens, played in the woods and creek, took a hike, and were generally pleasant all day long.
I made quiche for lunch, read my book, took pictures, and planted some bulbs. We ordered take-out for dinner, did baths and now, me-time. Pretty good for a day that almost wasn't.

For Granted

I've been in a bit of a funk the past few days-angry and resentful-about everything.  I know its due, in part, to a sugar binge I've been on...it started with the dark chocolate-with-sea salt bar we got in the store last Friday.  It's an incredible combination, and it has quickly shot to the top of the chocolate heap.  We sample it and recruit followers.  It's easy-sugar is a drug-a powerful and provacative drug. 

So, anyway, I have been in a sugar-induced funk, and this morning, amidst the breakfast-fixing and lunch-packing, I was also chopping cheese to send with each of my three children to school for their Valentine's Day parties. I was cutting quickly, and intensely, telling myself that in 40 minutes they would all be gone and I would have four hours to myself...just be nice for 40 more minutes.

My oldest daughter said, "you are really good at chopping cheese."  This comment transports me back fifteen years, to college, when I worked at a little cheese shoppe in downtown Lawrence.  I managed a 10-foot international cheese case full of cheeses from all over the world.  I cut and wrapped, and gave samples, and made the most terrific sandwiches in the world.  I tell my daughter the story of working there...how great my sandwiches were, and that I had a group of regulars that only wanted sandwiches made by me, that I used to walk there from my apartment to serve the lunch rush. 

The conversation steeps me in shame, and longing, and grief, and I desire the pungent smell of that cheese shoppe so much at that moment, I didn't know if I can continue with my morning responsibilites.  The shame, by the way, is because I didn't appreciate the freedom I had-how could I have known that phase of my life was the pinnacle of freedom I have experienced to date?  Unattached,  almost a graduate, with absolutely no idea what would happen next, and not caring that I didn't know.  Bliss.  Now I know that was bliss.  The grief, by the way, is because that girl is dead and gone, and lost to me. 

One might think that my life is no good, because I am sitting here crying as I write, for a carefree past existence, but that is not the case.  I am living the life little girls dream of-only better.  All the parts of the perfect life are in order-great husband, three exceptional children, an exciting, successful business that I so enjoy, a custom-built house on twenty wooded acres, good health and friends and family...why it all feels like a brick upside my head today, I don't know.  I hope its the sugar.  I'm sure its the sugar, it messes up my thinking, and makes me obsessed with What If's...

What if I didn't have kids?  I'm just positive and convinced I'd be famous for something by now.  I'm bursting with selfish, explosive, creative energy that bounces around my brain looking for a path, and here I am with three kids to worry about!  I'd be on my fourth best-selling novel, or my third knock-out screenplay, or finishing a one-of-a-kind photography collection that would be voted Best Coffee Table Book of the Decade..something like that.  I'm mad with childless people that don't produce great works.  What is stopping them?

That is my fantasy-a fallacy, I know.  If I didn't, or couldn't, have kids I would spend my life (as star-studded as it may be) with a deep sense of unfulfillment, and probably, I wouldn't be half the person I am today.  With three sets of eyes on me constantly, I am, more often than not, on very good behavior-a role model-a vision of what I hope they will be, at least in some basic way.  I had a very good mother, and I place a gargantuous amount of importance on the job. I have to do it well, it's too important not to.  I created these people, and I will do right by them.  I love doing it, mostly, and I tell myself that I will live-long and prosper-personally at a later date...that if I send these three out into the world with a start I can be proud of, that unfathomable rewards will come. 

Ahh, my spirit is lifting.  It's all going to be okay, as long as I appreciate what I have, right now today.  I am going off the white stuff though.  I gobbled-up all the Valentine's cookies that the babysitter left us, and there is a little bit of that chocolate sea salt bar left, so that could be a problem, but I wont' buy anymore.  I have three Valentines parties to attend this afternoon, that will be laden with sweets (hopefully yucky Wal-Mart sweets that I have no desire for, I only eat the good stuff) and I am going to a fancy dinner-out tomorrow for the holiday...will I be able to resist the dessert?  Hmm, maybe I should quit sugar on Monday.  Yeah, I'll start on Monday. 

Today its houseplants
. I used to grow tons of houseplants, every surface in my house full of them, plus big tropicals like schefflera, fig, and palms, hogging all the space by the windows. I loved violets too, because of my Aunt. When I was a kid, she got us all started raising violets, and we gave them all names and delighted in their frequent blooms.

In college I grew houseplants for sale. I would take cuttings from any plant I came across, even surreptiously a few times, from restaurants or businesses. I grew the cuttings through the summer, until they reached their peak in August, and then I simply made a sign and put them out on the porch to sell. ( Lawrence, KS is a town full of old houses with great porches.) I did two sales and got cleaned out both times, made a few hundred dollaris, and enjoyed every minute of it.
I took a job at a huge commercial greenhouse the following summer, and snuck cuttings all the time, nestled carefully in my lunchbox until I could get home to plant them.
I got really into cactuses and succulents. I love their unique forms and that they were nearly self-sufficient, and frugal with water. I grew a batch of them from seed one time. Baby cactuses look just like their grown-up relatives, only tiny. They poke through the soil at birth, minature versions of what they will someday be. When my brood of three dozen prickly youngsters were two-years old, I potted them up nicely and sold them off. I think about them often, wondering how many are still alive and well. I kept only one, and its now about sixteen years old, a beautiful specimen, about a foot tall and four inches wide at its thickest point. Its lived all over-Lawrence, KS first, then Wichita, onto Florida, Shell Knob, MO next, now Eureka Springs, hopefully to stay. Right now its in my bedroom, in a thin window with a deep sill made of stucco-covered straw bales.
When we first moved here and built this house I had one small child. Our lives were not busy and scheduled like they are now, and we gardened and tended plants as a hobby. Our greenhouse was full of gorgeous blooming ornamentals, edibles like collard greens, and tons of herbs. Slowly the energy I used for growing went elsewhere-to two more kids, and a brisk business.
I tend a small garden of ornamentals and herbs each year, and have a
handful of houseplants, but its not the relationship we once had with the plants.

With the recent expansion of our house, I have decided to add more plants to our lives. They are such great companions, polite and respectful house guests that don't ask for much. I want violets for my daughters to raise, with names of course, a jade plant, and some aloe Outside, tomatoes and peppers, and a fence crawling with gourds. Maybe I'll start some cactus seeds, and let the girls have a cactus to grow with them. They can live for many, many years, quite easily, with little care.

a

+

Red Cat, Dead Cat

This story I am about to record is not a pleasant one, but one that seems to swirl through my thoughts with a sad regularity, especially since I've had children and cats of my own.  Maybe if I lay it down here, it will stay, and quit pestering me with its wounded, meeeeooooow. 

It was so exciting to get a kitty, our first non-dog pet in the family!  It was pure white with pink rimmed eyes, and it was young enough that when it curled up, it  was the size of a softball.  Our grandmother's cat had kittens and Dad brought one home for my sister and I.  We played with it in the backyard that first day, on the grass, that was rich and thick and perfectly trimmed like a golf course.  We decided to call the kitty Snowball, and we loved her so!

The plan was to introduce our German Shepard, Raifer, to the new kitty a little at a  time, with my Dad in charge of the dog.  Raifer waited inside the house for its first meeting with Snowball, and when I opened the back door, to go inside to the bathroom, he darted past me, bent on destruction.  In a instant he had her torn open, the clean white fur bloodied.  I caught a glimpse of Snowball's pink insides; the same color as the rims of her eyes.    My Dad was yelling, my sister screaming, and I was frozen like a statue with my hand on the doorknob. 

That was it, no more kitty, and not for many years to come would there be one again.  I''m sure my parents said all the right things--accident, not your fault--but I knew better.  Because of me, that kitty didn't get to have a life.  Because of me, we didn't get to have a family cat.  That was the truth, and I knew it. 

Excerpt from pending novel Cardinal Dreams (from Ch. 1)

 

  As she drove toward the state line, Marie let her mind do a play by play of her life since leaving home.  Some people's lives change at the snap of a finger, like a train wreck, from which there is no going back, and that's how it had been since the day she was approached at the mall, by a modeling agent, who offered her the world--a way out, a better life for her struggling family--an offer she couldn't refuse.  "Why do they have to want my daughter?" her father had asked her, hugging her tightly at the airport that fateful day.  "Aren't there a million pretty girls out there?"  He'd been worried, she'd been naive. 

In high school she wasn't considered one of the pretty ones, she was too tall, and had no feminine influence at home to instruct her on grooming or style.  She was awkward, and walked with her head perpetually down, to shorten her stature.  She'd been called toothpick legs and bug eyes.  The day she started modeling, that changed.  Agents, photographers, marketing directors, make-up and hair artists, were all standing by to tell her she was beautiful, and men, were always in pursuit.  Her legs became endless, her eyes, striking.  In the beginning it was fun, and flattering, to see how the other half lived, to have money, to be sought after, but by year three she'd figured it out.  When you are beautiful, and in the business of being so, men don't want to know you, they want to touch you is all.  They strive to peel off just enough of the package to meet their needs, unconcerned with the product inside.  That's how she came to feel as a model, like a product. 

She'd been twenty-one when she landed her first big dollar job, a magazine print ad and billboard campaign for a chain of casinos that had locations across the southwest and Texas.  They liked her multicultural look and that she fit into the dinky showgirl costume.  There had been many girls in the running, and she'd been thrilled to be chosen.  The casino marketing rep showed up on location to meet her, and exclaimed to the whole crew, "tall, thin, and with big ones, perfect."  He held his hands crudely to his chest in reference to her breasts, which had been corseted to their highest position, and oiled for affect.  "And their real," the agent representing her offered proudly.  It was a humiliating landmark in her career, but over time, such treatment became an acceptable side effect of the job. 

As soon as Marie crossed over from Arkansas to Missouri she began following the directions she had been given by the landlord.  At first she was put off by rural Missouri, due to the deprived look of many of the homesteads.  Old cars, rusty farm equipment, abandoned trailers, and miles and miles of barbed wire fencing lined the roadsides.  When she found her turn-off, Water's Way, she came upon a tidy, unassuming neighborhood.  She passed an elderly couple walking a small white dog on a leash, a silver-haired woman in her garden with a hose, and a house almost completely obscured by bamboo.  It was a retirement community, a  normal, uneventful corner of the world where she could quietly hide, or recover, or start-over, she wasn't sure.  Between each house she glimpsed Tablerock Lake, waiting patiently, like an old friend. 

The cottage she'd rented was at the end of the road, the cul-de-sac, he'd said, and it was a nondescript brown wooden house on a stone foundation with a small front porch.  The past twenty-nine hours in the car all she'd thought about was what had been, and had yet to ponder what might be, here, in this little cottage on the lake. As the key squeaked in the lock, and the bolt snapped inside its housing, Marie felt like an intruder, and wondered what the hell she was doing with her life. 

The Baby's Makin' Fudge!

The baby's makin' fudge; it's really quite a mess.

She's got flour on the ceiling,

 and eggs upon her dress.

The baby's makin' fudge; it really looks like fun,

After she adds the nuts,

we hope that she'll be done.

The baby's making' fudge; I hope we get a taste,

She licks the spoon and bowl, so there isn't any waste.

The baby's makin' fudge, and she's sticky from head to toe,

She's kneading it and stretching it, and rolling it like dough.

The baby's makin' fudge; its quite a site to see,

She's clapping hands, giggling, and handing some to me!

All Creatures Great and Small

 

As I sit down to write my head is tingling, not with a creative idea or caffeine buzz, but with a concoction of naturally killing oils I applied to kill the lice my children brought home from school.  My hair, heavy with slathered coconut oil to smother the tiny beasts, will be wrapped in a towel, beehive-syle, for the next hour.  To the coconut oil, I added drops of rosemary oil, eucalyptus oil, peppermint oil, and tea tree oil from my natural arsenal, so it actually smells pretty good, albeit so strong my eyes are tearing. 

 

It all started on Saturday, when at my daughter's friends skating party, I noticed my daugthter scratching her head relentlessly as she twirled and sailed across the shiny floor, rocking her hips to the beat of songs I'd never heard before.   I bet she has a tick, is what I thought, and I searched her head as soon as we got to the car.  Being an Ozark-dweller for a decade, I can spot and remove a tick in two seconds, and I was blind to the tiny vermin that had established themselves in the hair of my middle child.   The next day I looked again, and in broad daylight I saw them--parasitic insects--and lots of them in various stages of development. 

 

I broke the news to my daughter, who, at six still considers little things to be a big deal, and this certainly was, a little thing (a little thing with legs and mouth parts).  In a lilty voice that belied my true feelings I said, "first we are going to give you a little hair trim, then we're going to get the bugs out."  This child, who I adore and identify with so strongly, is loud and reactive, and doesn't like her hair touched.  Doesn't like it washed, brushed, cut, or fixed in any way.  Only recently she allows me to wash it without screaming at the top of her lungs, a washcloth held tight as a bandage over her eyes while I later and rinse.  Two haircuts back, she sobbed through the whole thing, threatened bodily harm on the sylist, and had to be carried out as she wailed, "I want my hair to die!"  I didn't have the heart to tell her it was already dead.   

 

So the crying began, moaning and miserable, instead of screaming and physical, so I was in good shape.  Her thick golden brown hair was long overdue for a cut (can you blame me?) and hung below the shoulders.  I quickly took it to chin length, sawing through the thickest parts like a butcher through gristle, and then swept the infested locks over the edge of the porch into our wild weed patch below.  "Maybe the birds will use my hair for a nest," she offered sadly.  

Step two was applying the smelly goo and setting the timer for the allotted time, and distracting her as she began to complain that her head was on fire.  Then, onto washing, with an accompaniment of crying, as I lathered and rinsed three times.  A final rinse of vinegar was poured through her now bobbed tresses to "release the glue that holds the eggs to the hair shaft." 

The combing, with a comb so finely toothed I could barely see between them, ended up being her least favorite part, but the tiny comb did its job, and dead-looking lice eggs wedged in the teeth which had to be periodically rinsed and flossed with dental tape.  After two hours, I released her with strict orders not to do headstands on the couch  or build forts made of blankets until further notice. 

About the time Middle Child is calming down, my oldest daughter arrives home from her sleepover (not good for the hosting family) and upon perusal of her hair, I break the news to her and begin the whole process again.  She is almost ten and has very long thick hair, and, unike her sister, she cares about her hair and so authorized only a two-inch trim, and lamented at the pile of hair at her feet.  Also unlike her sister, she cooperated and hardly complained, (minding the idea of bugs in her hair much more than the process of eliminating them, just the opposite of her sister as well.)  People are going to find out was her concern.

Then commenced the laundry.  Seven loads that day, as all four beds were stripped, all clothes gathered, jackets taken from their hooks by the door, and towels put through.  Stuffed animals, unwashable pillows,  and couch cushions were  bagged to sit in plastic for three days, so when the eggs hatch, the newborns will be starved to death. 

My husband took advantage of a teachable moment and showed everyone a mature louse and egg thereof under the microscope.  The minature louse looked like a hairy beast at 40x magnification.  "See the fluid circulating through its body?  That's your blood, " he told Middle Child.  "Cool.  I was their habitat and  their food, " she said, truly sounding honored now. 

My youngest, at three, didn't want to be left out, and although I could find no sign of bugs in her very fine hair, we did a treatment and wash on her too.  Today, after sending the kids to school (nit-free I hope) I gave myself a treatment, stripped all the beds for washing again (as I will everyday for the next ten days!), and vacuumed the floors, couch, and chairs.  In one week any survived eggs with hatch and I have to do the entire process over again on everyone.  I reported it to the school, called friends we recently played with, will alert the soccer team kids, and now, I have to go prepare my vinegar rinse, as my hour is up.

 

 

 

Unfulfilled Passion

Passion.  Could ever a more loaded and ambiguous word exist?  Just speaking the word passion sets a longing in motion, as it whispers through the lips and expels its heat to the universe.  Its meaning, spinning in any number of directions, is, at its core, a strong feeling.   Passion is love or lust or desire or anger or misery--all of these intensities qualify the word.  Is it any surprise these opposite extremes of emotion are allowed expression in a single word?

Unfulfilled.  Could ever a more empty and bitter word exist?  Its meaning is clear and is not open to interpretation.   Uttering the word is galling, as it never leaves the throat, but festers there, to be eternally reckoned with. 

Unfulfilled passion. Could ever a more disheartening duo of words exist?   Said together, one tries to escape the other, but the former holds the latter hostage.  It's a dead end, once these two have joined, they are often unseparable.

Old Dream

I'll never get this dream out of my head.  I was probably seven or eight when I first had it, then it recurred over and over, haunting me with its anger. 

I am walking down a stone path in a park-like setting, an absolutely perfect park, painstakingly manicured, and all-abloom like the cover of a garden magazine.  I am a child, dressed in a sunny yellow dress with lacey edges.  I have Shirley Temple socks and shoes, and a yellow ribbon tied in a bow, sits atop my head.  A graceful tree arches over the path ahead and I skip toward it, cocking my head to hear a fluty bird's song floating through the warm air. 

I stop when I get to the tree and see a small bird, the one that sang to me, perched on a low branch.  It's feathers are many shades of brown, its beak a faded orange.  I entend my hand to it, and it hops onto my finger, but I am not delighted.  The idyllic scene is shattered as I close both hands over the bird and crush it with one squeeze, quick as a cracking knuckle.  I am horrified, stunned at my actions, frozen in fear of myself.  I wake.