THIS YEAR

A real cliffhanger, we are waiting for the sequel, years in the making.  The world ended, in a way, tomorrow 11 years ago.   All the living witnessed it. Horrific acts can leave the observer speechless, at the moment they are happening, and upon remembering. The way I remember it, that day, 9-11, changes every year, moving in and out of feeling, intellectualizing, ignoring, sometimes tearful, wistful, patriotic then hopeful, sometimes nothing more than a "huh? no way."

This year, the kids and I, we, stare at photos of the towers before.  Towers made by, made for, super heros. How could they be so tall? How they shimmer in the sunlight. How they point to heaven. How great, so very great, they are for scaling with sticky hands and a red and blue spandex suit. How very great for jumping from, spraying webs, free falling in a bending arc to be swept back upward toward the neverending american sky. 

Dear babes, "our problems are manmade---therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man's reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable--and we believe they can do it again." JFK

Luke: I want to ride to school on a hover craft. Mom: Design it, I'll help you build it.

FOOTBALL

I had all the physical trappings of a football widow star in the making---blonde hair, petite build, blue eyes,baby on the hip. "Mom, I liked it when your hair was long and blonde" "Ava, you weren't even born yet."

Stone cold sober on a Wednesday night, the opening game of the 2012 NFL season, the background roar of the tv, the focused gazes of the players hand across their chests as the anthem rings out, swelling feelings of god and country (wait. what are we fighting for? oh that's right, millions of dollars and lots of photos. we are brave. we are men. faith, family, then football.) the shimmery tights across the muscled up thighs, the incessant twinkling flashes of lights across the crowd, all this and more...has the effect of a firework on a soldier. Hit the deck, run for cover, movE!!...MOVE!!!...MOOOVVVE!!! 

Memories rushing into the forehead like Walter Payton.

A whispered (not shouted. my sons are obsessed with football. the game is on for them.)  proclamation to my aunt "the only way I could watch a football game now is if I was on the couch with my beloved, gazing intently into his eyes, and drinking heavily."

My former husband---I am currently ddeeeeeevorrrrrrced (to be said with a low gutteral dipping tone, a clucking of the neck, a wrinkling of the brow, to further emphasize the ugliness of the word. as opposed to "maaarrried" to be spoken in a soft almost falsetto tone, chin up, eyes bright, neck extended toward the heavens, reaching for the divine masterful planner)----was a highschool football coach, in TEXAS (...yep. that's right. texas where "football is king!")

I was, I've been told, the worst coach's wife on the planet.  I concur.   One month into my new football widow status (a status i maintained for six years straight), age 22, a stay at home mom with an infant aged 4 months, I received a call from a sweet excited stranger, "Hey! We heard you're super creative...(My eyes light up and my minds starts racing to large colorful paints and posters and murals...)...We need some help, (help? I can help. I'd love to help!) ... we need 75 cowbells painted with football players numbers...(smile drops to frown twists to scowl morphs to foul attitude...total and complete and severe and absolute disappointment, followed by disgust.).  I respond "Oh. I see. Well, thank you for considering me. But I don't think that's a project I'd like to take on right now." And with that, a newcomer to the scene, I committed football widow suicide.  

Reincarnated now as an educated, independent, book loving woman who is also a mother, I can only laugh (probably cry too) that the stench of football will color our walls, occupy our fridays, (wednesdays, thursdays, saturdays and sundays, too. oh! and mondays.), and flood our dinner conversations, for many years to come. Bless their little hearts.

SHORT THINGS

artwork by Leif

LONELY

crawling, a mute snail
left an iridescent trail

when met she'd chime her only line
"read between the slimes"

dirty minds saw only slime.

and everyone was ugly and illiterate.








ON LOVE

Bartering

No gold coins.
No paper money.

I give. You receive.
You give. I receive.

To your thank you, 
my pleasure.



MISS MARY

Mis adventures
Mis trust
Mis chief
Mis understood
Mis placed

No.

Misericordia.

Growing pains.
Mis drops off like a tadpole tail.


ALWAYS A TATTOO

Ankles, thighs, shoulders,
necks, hearts, names,
devils, eagles...roses...

If a tattoo is to mark individualism, 
why are they so repetitive? 

More like branded cattle.

SUBURBAN SPIRITUALITY: THINK INSIDE THE BOX

Trivial Pursuit was my specialty. Even if I didn't have a clue, I could sway my team with such confidence we'd use my answer.  (sound like the makings of a lawyer? recipe for a lawyer: take 27 parts b.s., add 42 million parts confidence, plus 2 parts intellect.)

My favorite answer lately, to any question, on any topic, to any audience "I DON'T KNOW."

A rainbow spread across the suburban rooftops just before 8 p.m. last night. We could see the two ends, brightly glowing. Resplendent. Ava dropped from the tree she'd been shaking, dangling, clinging, climbing, hugging, leaves rustling at her quick departure. The boys turned from their moving bundle scuffle of kicking, punching, grabbing, squeezing, cheeks flushed, eyeballs sideways, teeth snaggled. 

We stared. Awed by the glowing splendor.  (Incidentally, I now associate rainbows with chick-fil-a as a sort of entry in my mental thesauras, under antonyms.)

Leif gave god a ride on his bicycle, through suburbia, around 8 p.m. two nights before.  "Mom! MOM! MOOOOMMMMMM!!!! Come look a praying mantis on my bike!" My reluctance overcome by his urgence, I followed his excited voice to the backyard. There, on the handlebars, a green mantis, stared at us, still as silence. (Once, Leif told me "Mom, it's impossible to do nothing."... As he stood perfectly still, not breathing, not blinking, not speaking...heavy outbreath..."See! Did you see that? Even just now I was doing something, standing. see? it's impossible to do nothing.")

We gazed at its compelling serenity.

The African Bushman say the mantis is god incarnate, a divine messenger. "the voice of the infinite in the small." When it appears, it will "show one the way."  (Once, on a tick infested, mosquito buzzing, wild, hardly tamed, acre of yard in the arkansas country side, my friend and I trapped by the pitch black of night at the other end of the property from the house, wondered how to hoof it home. Grabbing my hand, she exclaimed in her unworried home turf confidence "Follow me I know the way!"...we sprang forward, high stepping, gingerly...squealing...immediately crashing into a large brush pile and falling flat on our faces. )

A lady bug landed on my hand, on my suburban stoop, crawled busily across the ridges of my fingerprints, up my arm, doubling back down, to the tip of my pinky and flew away with her crunchy delicate wings.  They say the ladybug will whisper your name in your true love's ear...(note: do not be the aphid. ladybugs devour pesky little aphids to infinite nothingness with quick overwhelming force. sweet little ladies.)

"What will you do next?"...pause, trying to develop a suitable answer..." hmmmm...(this keeps the listener in suspense, waiting for the revelation)...head slightly cocked to the right...I dunno.. (the answer feels new everytime).

REGULAR DOCKET

Courtrooms are for stone face stares. short sentences. legal precedent.objectivity equitable maxims. counsel approaches the bench (the term used for where the judge sits) "your honor before i withdraw from this case i'd like to apologize for the defendant's girlfriend who said some very awful things about you in the hallway just before we came inside. I just wanted to let you know out of respect for our longstanding and meaningful friendship."  

Courtrooms are for donkey heads, rabbit grins, rooster cock walks, circus music, monkey back scratchin'.  coughing. lying. riding an acid trip. not for actually beating your significant other, but for building the tension that will undoubtedly result in a beating, "she earned it." 

Me in the Courtroom

Once an old crumudgeon male attorney interrupted an old female attorney ( whose monologues left listeners swimming the backstroke slowly down a meandering stream, just waiting waiting, swimming, coughing, yawning, scratching, swimming, swimming, til the point, if any ever was made), "shutup" he'd say. repeatedly. every time she began to speak. the hearing unfolded. [ find "objection" insert "shutup". 17 replacements made.]   

Judge, "I know there's some law on that point somewhere. I just don't know what it is."

Curvy stretches of smooth road, on the hillside, from the courthouse to the home, are for driving a bugatti. "Mom, noone in Arkansas has a bugatti. and noone ever will." 

Kitchens floors are for dancing. Dancing is for pulling out every move that you ever learned in any sport you ever tried. Tae kwon do. Boxing-"geez. mom. you look like you're ready to spar someone." Cheerleading tryouts for the team you never made, confirmed by your teensy daughter's observation "mom. you could never be a cheerleader."  rock climbing, add a little jump rope, the robot, salsa lessons, swing dancing. Move every muscle in your body. Channel the spirit of a house cat, leap and land. If your neck isnt sore later, did you miss the 90's?  You have hit peak performance when the once staring in disbelief children, blinking. watching. blinking. have found other more normal activities. 

You have cleared the room-success!  

"to the windows, to the wall, the sweat goes down my balls..."http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcxLPkUS8_4

OH BACH, DEBUSSY IS CHANGING ME

Key facts change the story. 

I've taken issue with Debussy, his meandering ways of composing. How anti intellectual of me.  But Bach has been my rock and roll session, inspiring my attitude, style, and language.  It's predictable, yes, but not quite classical-lite Mozart.  Layered and layered with sound and rhythms, countermelodies. Upswings so high I can touch god's fingertips. And it is finished when it ends.  The lingering feelings-satisfaction.  

bach in outerspace

Skyping with my dad today: "I played Bach for you on my recorder (I was taking a college music class) before you were born. I knew only one song. I played it over and over and over and over..."  Dad on a recorder. ha! Same dad who talks of lungs collapsing at a certain altitude. Shit, Mary, i won't die in a nursing home. Find me instead an old man, passed out in the  mountains from climbing too high.

Aha! The meaning of life, with a passing comment suddenly made clear. Had he played  Debussy and maybe different songs every day, I might be an artist, who could float into the clouds without needing a conclusion. I could have run long distances slowly with no need for a pace, a finish line, a prize at the end. I could have enjoyed a relationship effortlessly, let it unfold for its own sake, not needing definition.

"I am a lawyer, it's my rebellion to my artist family," my tag line before this summer, was started by forces outside of me. Rock and roll defined an age group. Gave kids a sense of belonging, even when feeling alone. Bach, you've made me lonely.  Debussy come rescue me.

Give me order. Give me intellectual depth. Give me artistic beauty. I'll get to them in life in that order, unclip the cams, strap em to my belt. Amass, don't abandon. Unless it's wasting too much time. Then, leave the stuck ones behind. 

Climb on. 

FAIL

Failure is best discussed in retrospect. Some great life lesson learned. Some new direction revealed after falling, falling, falling, groundless to the rock solid bottom.  Take J.K Rowling: 

"Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy to finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one area where I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter, and a big idea. And so rock bottom became a solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life."  – J. K. Rowling, Harvard commencement address, 2008

Who wants to say, while it's happening: my legs hurt, like hell, because for years I've been coddled (hardly, but kind of when contrasted to physical labor) in the courtroom, and now I'm assisting a caterer.

Smiling while sucking at waiting tables was my specialty. That was me at 19. Made great tips, though. Forgot every order as soon as I turned away from the table toward the kitchen, to self: was it NO mustard? Or NO mayonnaise? hmmmm. Guess I'll leave off both and add stoby's sauce (a kind of mixture of the two)" 

Smiling, smiling a lot, I presented random compilations remotely resembling what had actually been requested.  Working breakfast, I'd show up before 7, having only a few hours of sleep. At 17, 18, 19, Friday nights are NOT for sleeping. My legs, at the knees, ached by shift's end.

A degree and a child later, I stood all day as a teacher. Spanish teacher in a private school in Houston, TX. Legs ached hard by day's end. (So did my soul, and my bored mind.)

Yesterday, 2 degrees later, 3 children later, a law license later, many years later, many things later (Just later. way LATER)I stood not even all day grating cheese, dicing tomatos, mincing jalapenos, mixing, stirring, tossing...melted a block of butter. grated a block of cheese.  My friend, a budding entrepeneur caterer, prepared for a party. I was her assistant. 

The yin and yang. For years, I've been sitting at a desk,  hunkered back, eyes glazing from computer glow, brain aching from reading, reconstructing, critically analyzing, creating, editing...words and words and words...for years now. Years. Mind achy by day's, week's end. Emotional energy spent.

Once, I saw an educational show that described in great detail, with charts, and graphs, formulas and british accents, how the world would "end" when some stellar body type thing would collide with the earth. There would be no end, really, just a change in shape. The shape of things would change--the oxygen level, the light of the sun, the tilt of the axis, the depth of water. The energy would still exist. I took great comfort in this.

milky way
The Church, Under the Milky Way Tonight  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q6nKP10j4s

Chopin's The Awakening helps, describes so well the act of changing course:  

"To succeed, the artist must possess the courageous soul...Courageous, ma foi! The brave soul. The soul that dares and defies." 

"Be careful; the stairs and the landings are dark; don't stumble." 

"She stood naked in the open air, at the mercy of the sun, the breeze that beat upon her, and the waves that invited her. How strange it seemed to stand naked under the sky! how delicious! She felt like a newborn creature, opening its eyes in a familiar world that it had never known...

she swims out to sea 

"Her arms and legs were growing tired...exhaustion was pressing upon and overpowering her....the shore was far behind her and her strength was gone." 

Feeling ridiculous, a bit of physical labor for one day, at age 33, kicked my sorry ass. It is good to gain respect for the bulk of my fellow mankind.  Reminded me of a precious children's story, A Chair For My Mother. A grandmother, a mother, and a daughter are saving up to buy a chair to rest in. They are in a new home. All their belongings had burned in a fire. "My mother works as a waitress in the Blue Tile Diner...Sometimes she's so tired she falls asleep while I count the money into piles..."  

Dreamed last night, I did a round off and flip so high it took me seconds to drop. Nailed the landing.



Mother to Son

Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor --
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now --
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

Langston Hughes