Coffee....a short story

okay, i thought i could get away from coffee so i TRIED for 5 days. the first day i had the WORST headache, right in the eyes straight through the to the back of my head, arrows on fire! just throbbing all day long into the night, but i did NOT have any coffee. the next day it started backing off and by 3pm on the 2nd day it was gone. COOL this was gonna be easy. i went the whole 5 days w/no coffee! just a 8oz cup of tea in the morning, and an 8oz cup of tea at night, both w/honey.


now that's a HUGE cut in caffeine since i usually make a 12c pot at 8am and drink the whole thing by 2pm and make another about 6pm and drink the whole thing by 10pm. that's alotta damn caffeine! i've done it that way for years and years. and i make a special mix, special extra dark roast either Columbian or Jamaican as those are very strong and smooth, plus i get a very good Peruvian espresso. i use 2 scoops dark roast, and 1 scoop espresso. when that's brewed i pour that and add 1/2 scoop of vanilla cappuccino mix, 2 tspns sugar (brown sugar), and creamer.


let me tell you that is a caffeine overload right there. it's strong, heavy, hot and sweet!!!!!!!! that will keep you boasted all day long!!!!!!!


well anyway, i went the full 5 days, but after the headache went away i started having phantom coffee smells wake me up in the morning. i'd be sound asleep and the smell of coffee would come wafting across my face and just lift me up out of sleep like a dark angel grabbing me by the nostrils and tickling me awake! i snapped awake and tossed off the covers, kicking dogs off of me, march out to the kitchen only to find.....


an empty cold pot sitting there looking at me with 7am blinking on it's face.


i'm the only one in the house to drink coffee w/any regularity. my ex used to say that was my signature breath scent. he hated it, but my Joe always loved that i smelled like fresh brewed coffee. he said it was exotic and warm, like me. lol funny guy. anyway, there was never any coffee. but i waited it out. finally yesterday, that stopped happening, i thought i was passed it. i thought GREAT!!!! the addiction is over! i'm FREE, i'm FREE!


so NOT!


i got up this morning, made my tea. sipping it, reading the mornings news, laughing at the goofy stuff, looking at puppies, and an ad pops up for....yeah, you guessed it.....FOLGERS!


now, i don't even like Folgers. it's what i grew up drinking from grade school on cold Rochester mornings with my mother yanking my hair, and yelling at me to do one more thing before i escaped off to school for the day. it's a nasty, dry, stale, bitter coffee, that brings back nasty, dry, stale, bitter memories. i totally don't like it. but there i sat, watching the damn thing and watching the steam wiggle up from the cup and curl around that man's lips making love to his teeth and slipping over his tongue, a river of dark sweetness just flowing over and down his throat in one smooth sip. they had me. i was bought and sold.


i hate ads. JUST HATE THEM. i hate being an addict. but not that much. i got up, cracked open my wallet, all the moths flew out, and I puffed out all the dust, and grabbed a $10 bill, slipped on my shoes and marched out the door, across the highway, and into the Big Lots store. there on the shelf was sitting a one pound sack of Java Time, $5, one of my favorite brands of Jamaican coffee. they didn't have any espresso, but i didn't care, i was gonna have coffee, no matter how it was made. i practically raced back home, almost got hit coming across the highway because i forgot to look both ways. wouldn't that be a bitch, in such a hurry to have my fix that i got run down and killed on the way to have it! lmao


i get home, walk in the door and since i'd been gone all of ten minutes ALL of the dogs charge me at the door and i crash onto the floor immediately covered in dogs!!!!!! NOW i'm cussin'!!!!! these rat bastards just don't want me to have coffee! i'm kickin', i'm hollerin', i'm cussin', my coffee sack is all the way across the dining room, but they just go on lickin, and barkin, like it's some kind of lollipop party! finally i get my feet under me and lurch up and scream ENOUGH!!!!!!! Sylvio, my cockatoo, starts laughing hysterically from the livingroom, finding it all just the height of hilarity. while Quasimodo, the macaw spouts up with, "What up?" "What up Man?". the dogs scatter. finally, i can make it to the coffee pot after i pick up my bag. fortunately it didn't get busted and none of the dogs noticed it, an unusual moment of oblivion on their part.


i get the pot all set up, i open the bag after searching an endless length of time for the utility shears, and the smell of the coffee just about knocks me off my feet. it's like your first breath when you've been underwater too long. HEAVEN! three heaping scoop go into the basket, i snap it all together, press the ON button, push the pot back into it's little corner. then......i wait. and wait. and wait. and wait some more.


it takes 10 DAMN MINUTES for this pot to brew. UGH UGH UGH!!!!


it's the longest 10 minutes of my LIFE!!! it's like LABOR PAINS!!! it's like having your fingers shut in the care door in the half a moment before someone opens the door and fingers are free!!! it's like that moment when you get in the shower and the water is still too hot the second before it cools and touches your skin!!! OMG, IT'S NEVER GONNA END! but finally, the 10 minutes is over, and i pour the dark golden, amber liquid, steaming into my cup, add 2tspns of sugar, and creamer to it, no espresso, no cappuccino, just a regular coffee....






i hold it to my nose and take a deep, hot, damp, sweet, breath....





i hold my breath,




so sweet,




so good,


and i drink.


my addiction is fed.


i am home again .












dwke/82714

Tattoo

I searched for years for the right tattoo, until one day on the internet I found this old painting called Earth Dragon, and I chose the central theme of the painting for my tattoo. There are several connections I have to this particular piece of art, and all of them are very meaningful for me. Getting this done, finally, at the ripe old age of 44 years was the culmination of a lifelong search for my path. This two part piece has obvious representations in the pagan world, The Green Man-new life, growth, change; Earth Dragon - protection, life, courage, strength, guardian and guide; Earth - the All, life, rebirth, fragile beauty.

Having this work done is the symbol of my permanent commitment to my pagan faith in The All. There is always pain involved in getting a tattoo, and the 4.5 hours it took to get this done all in one sitting, from sketching to filling, was exquisitely so, and it's something I wouldn't have missed for anything. I look at the pain as symbolizing the pain that I had suffered in my life up to that point, before I had found my path. The pain of loss, fear, abuse, neglect, not belonging anywhere, of being lost in a world of strangers. There was intense, extreme pain when the artist did the tail of the dragon, there is a small bundle of nerves just under there, and it had me in moaning tears. That was the greatest pain of my life, the loss of my son... but the moment the tattoo was finished began the healing, the finding of the path, the finding of MY path to The All, and there hasn't been a single moment that I've regretted since then.

The tat also represents other, much more mundane things in my life. The Green Man also represents my husband Joe, who literally saved my very life from self-medicating depression with drugs and alcohol when we first met, he loved me and brought great good change to my life. The earth represents my children, and my life. The dragon is myself, I live to serve and to protect; to bring life, to save life; to love, and to teach love. This tattoo means a great many very important things to me. It was supposed to. I think if you're going to change something given us in it's purity, that it should mean a great deal. That's why it took so long to find it.  That’s why it was so painful to receive it.

This Rainy Night

As storm clouds gather
cooling winds grow
gently bringing the evening sprinkle
of greening summer's rains
I carry my weary bared feet
over shattered shells
and dirty sand calling the crew to cover

Sitting in my crippled wooden chair
I kick over my worn soft sandals
slowly roll the ragged straps over dirty feet
Walking on asphalt needs more
than tired bones and calloused heels
I call to me the loyal Lord Hugo
my stormy evening walking partner,
always at my side.

Together we pass through
the safety of an oak door
into the darkness of night, rain and wind
to, maybe, find the breath of
One we've both grown to miss
Maybe, his face will shine out
from behind the clouds
upon the gleaming disc of Luna
On in the momentary fiery flash
of a lightening burst across the darkening sky.

Lord Hugo's platter-like paws
splash small waves across my sandals
as we tread through tall grass
cross the rain-silvery rails
make way through crunching gravel
wade through flooding streets
stop to look up at street lights,
colored stars on black lines dancing on the wind
so festive and out of season.

Such a warm night, such a cold rain
yet, no tender voice upon the whipping wind
no soft whisper floating on the chilled rain
no warm touch afloat the drifting leaves
not a single glimmer the shadowed moon
nor a single lingering fiery flash burning across the night.

Ah, but it's so good to walk,
to walk, in the wind, in the rain,
passing lonely strangers on teh street
they cannot see with lowered heads
see where raindrops end their cold dropping
and teardrops begin their burning falling
Lord Hugo must the lead me on now
I no longer can find my way
The rain, yes it's so, clouds my sight,
This rainy night. 

dragonwyke    8/30/2013

Angel Brought the Greenman

'Lena came for a visit day before yesterday and was here all day long.  She was a bratty joy, as usual.  Kept busy and smiling, full of hugs and laughter, conversation and giggles, questions and kisses.  I don't think I'd spent a happier day in months upon months.  Around 230 in the afternoon she came to me all cranky, carrying her blankie, clinging to my skirts,

"Gwamma, I weally need a gwammanap!  Can you gimme one? ... pweeze!"

So I gave her my hand and she gently put her tiny fingers inside mine and we trailed off to my room.  We put in a movie that we missed entirely, can't even remember what it was, and snuggled up under the covers.  She curled up right next to me under my arm, sucking her thumb and fell right  to sleep mumbling,

"I love you so much Gwamma!  I weally miss Gwampa tho, I wish he sweeped wif us 'sted 'o the moon."

And then she was sleeping.  Not moments later, so was I.  Then in my sleep the GreenMan came, bringing with him joy and tears and sorrow. 

We were all, Joe, and I and all the girls and their boyfriends and the kids were sitting at the table sharing dinner.  His favorite, pasta with all the fixin's, meatballs, sausage, thick red sauce, garlic toast, olive oil for dipping, there was chianti in glasses.  I was a fine Italian feast just the way he loved it.  Everyone was talking and laughing and lightly arguing, as our family is wont to do.  He was smiling and so happy, standing and refilling glasses, passing dishes.  I can't remember the last time I'd seen him so happy  He even had his front teeth back that got knocked out at work when a 250lb box slipped off the steel when he was putting up stock one day and it fell onto his face. 

I was watching him and thinking how really strong and beautiful he is.  How thick and shining his hair and beard were, how beautiful, just beautiful his hands were.  Just like my Grandfather's hands were so many years ago.  He sat down to his plate and I caught his hand.  I swear, it was warm and living in mine.  I rubbed the skin with my thumb feeling the thickness again, not the boniness of ill health.  He was a living man again, in my hands.  I could feel myself begin to breathe again, like a glass breaking and icy water spilling out onto the floor, free and rushing out all at once.  He's here, again!

"O, I miss you!  I miss you so much!  Where have you been?"

"I miss you too honey!  Don't worry, I'm okay"  he smiled at me with those beautiful hazel blue eyes twinkling at me.

Then he lifted my hand and kissed my knuckles with a whisper soft kiss.  He turned over my hand, spread open my palm and lay his whiskered cheek in my hand slowly turning his face till his lips touched my palm, tenderly placed a kiss there too.  This is how he always kissed me, all our life together.  So soft, so tender, so romantically sweet. 

Then after a time we had an after dinner smoke outside in the dooryard.  We stood in the cool air.  Looking at the dark sky, the beautiful shining stars, the big beautiful nearly full moon, breathing in the scent of blooming jasmine, gardenia, and honeysuckle.  We held hands and stood together, leaning our shoulders together.  Enough time must've passed, though forever is too short a time for me, because he turned to me and pulled me close hugging me hard.  He pushed my hair back from my face, kissed my forehead, my eyes, my cheeks and finally my lips.  Such a loving, sweet, lover's kiss we might've shared 27yrs ago.  I began to cry, because I knew.  I asked him,

"Please, stay.  Can't you stay?  I need you so.  I love you!"

He said,

"I love you.  I'll see you 'round, don't you worry.  You'll be fine."

Then he turned, trailing my hand, and disappeared in the scent of blooming jasmine, gardenia and honeysuckle. 

I woke to 'Lena wiping my tears telling me,

"It's okay Gwamma, we will see Gwampa agin.  He visits me awda time!  You don't hafta cwy."

So, my little Angel brings my GreenMan to visit.

I Made It After All

i happened to be out w/my daughter Zee today looking for a decent pair of sneakers that wouldn't fall apart on me. found a pair of sketchers (love 'em) at Ross for $25 (great deal). i happened to catch a glimpse of myself in a full length mirror as i walked past (i'm not used to looking in mirrors, i hate them) and had to walk back to it for a second look.

i look funny in my clothes now. i usually dress sort of frumpy anyway, that's just the way i dress, so it wasn't that. i'm only 5' tall and i haven't grown since i was 12yrs old so it wasn't that. i haven't colored my hair in over 5mos and i knew it was graying pretty good, so it wasn't that. i knew i'd lost about 20lbs over the last 6mos, so no it wasn't that either. i stood there looking and wondering what was wrong, why i looked so odd. sort of worn, tired, older, smaller....what...oh...that's it.... like my mother.

i look like my mother. after all these years, after all the work, the kids, the moving, the jobs, the disability, the divorce, the 2 marriages, and now finally, finally the worst loss of all, losing my husband to death, i am my mother. how funny, how strange, how ironic, how sad, and, really, how wonderful that i made it after all. i really am just that strong after all.

The Cheshire Cat Spoke to Me

the cheshire cat said to alice, "You've lost your Muchness..." when i heard that at the theater when i saw the movie, i thought it was the greatest line. i understood it perfectly. i've always had so much MUCHNESS about me. joe always appreciated that about me. he called it "Your Tiger" or "Your Dragon". he'd would always tell me "Your dragon is breathing fire today" or "Your tiger is on the loose today". when i had to be medicated for epilepsy the meds tamed my wild beasts and my muchness got a little smaller but it was still there and came out when something or someone i loved was threatened, and he loved that too. but i noticed something this morning about 4am when i was outside waiting for Maggie to find her way back to the porch in the dark.

i only have a thimbleful of it left. for the first since i was maybe 12yrs old i was actually afraid. i jumped at noises in the dark, i backed away from shadows under the trees, i didn't go into the back yard like usually do, it was too dark and too many "things" were moving in the breeze, i was utterly, utterly alone....

i was afraid, fearful, skittery, jumpy, atremble, all those words you use for someone who can't take care of themselves. for the first time ever, the cheshire cat spoke to me and said,

"You've lost your Muchness...where is your Jabberwocky?"

Breaking Down

well, i just finished putting out all my santas and my tc timber wooden train set for the holiday. we will be opening presents tomorrow on the Yule so i had to get them all out tonight. it was nice seeing all these old things again. i see them every year, some since the kids were babies, like the train set. but this year it's a little different. this year is the very first time joe isn't here to watch me unwrap them and marvel that none are broken, or appreciate the "new" old ones we aquired, or look at the neat ones my cousin gave me 'again', or redirect my clumsy efforts, or help me put together the little trees that go w/the bigger santas.

he wasn't here to look at it all finished and tell me what a great job i did, give me a big hug and ask me if i wanted to screw santa under the tree again this year, lol, while he wiggled his eyebrows at me. he's not gonna take my hand and take me to bed and watch some corny chick flick w/me tonight either.

sometimes i think i'll get thru a whole day w/out breaking down, but i think i might make it a few hours every day before the tears begin. i get distracted. i seem to get lost in my day. i tend to run out of air and have to remind myself to breathe again. i sometimes find myself standing in the middle of the room and dogs are all standing there looking at me and i have to wonder how long i've been there, because i honestly don't remember i've been lost in thought remembering joe so long. i started going thru his things, couldn't do it. it's all right there in the bedroom where he left it. i found love songs on his computer in file marked Maria, i listened to all of them. some of them so beautiful it was like watching the moon rise on a clear winter night.

ahhhh, i don't know. i just don't know.

Just a Thought

Change, no matter how difficult or heartbreaking the transition may be, is a necessary part of living. And is almost always a good thing. There are always lessons to be taken away and learned, walls to be broken down or built up, lives to be restored or let go. And hope. There is always the hope that tomorrow when the sun rises we can be better people, feel stronger, be more spiritually generous, care more, hurt less, and maybe just see and feel more beauty for just one more day.

My Sweetest Love

Oh, how I love you,
I miss you like the grasses
miss the winds.
The beauty has all gone and faded
for you are the one that brought
the color to the darkling skies.
Where have all the rains gone
Changed to tears gone salty and so
sad upon my cheek
So sad I cannot speak
My heart lies split and bleeding
dying on the floor
And yet the morning sun
will rise
and find me still alive
Blood and tears will dry
yet still
I will cry for I do love you
Oh how I miss you
I can never find you
tho I will look on every wind
you will carry my tears away
Goodbye, Goodbye,
My sweetest love.

dragonwyke 12162012

Talking Water

When my breath is stale, cold and dry 
rasping hard against my ribs
When my heartbeat thuds a hollow tone
upon a crackled skin
When the tender flesh upon my fingertips
feel neither heat nor cold
My feet no longer tread
the dampened earth
                                                             My dreams begin to wander
                                                             my ears seek out
                                                             the singing voice
                                                             of the Talking Water

foaming, splashing, dancing
over, under, around
darkened, rounded
boulders and stones
a fast moving river rushing
down the mountain
      
                                                              A voice in my dream
                                                              draws me ever closer
                                                              my feet and ankles 
                                                              suddenly damp, cold
                                                              my knees and thighs
                                                              chilled, wet

I fall  upon the language of the Talking Water
She feeds me once again
like so many years ago
when I walked her shores and stones.

                                                              I seek her now only in dreams
                                                              I am fed all the same
                                                              I breathe anew
                                                              My heart beats afresh 
                                                              Fingers grasp life once more
                                                              Feet again tread a steady path

I walk with the 
Talking Water. 

mec 
08182012
                        
                                                            

                                                           

For some time now I've been coming to the realization that I am no longer a young woman. I am among the "older set". It's strange to think of myself in those terms, though it's not painful like it was a few months ago. It's become funny, actually, and I don't find it necessary to defend my age anymore as I once did. I still am not finding myself looking forward to old age as some of my counterparts do. The "Croning Years" are still some time ahead of me, though I now stand on the doorstep, I'm not quite ready to darken the doorway.

I find that there are some things that bother me more now than ever they did before. Such as the maturity level of the 20 somethings of todays world. My kids hear me say this all the time, and they probably could quote me ver batim, "When I was 21...." or "When I was that age..." , "I would've never..." or "I would've done it this way...or that way". They're probably also sick to death of hearing me say it, but it's so very true. I look at the young people of today and I just can't fathom them.

Young men that work with my husband that just can't be bothered to work. If they were to ever pop a sweat it would be a miracle of science. Their sense of entitlement boggles my mind. The young women who start out from home for the first time and they don't know the first thing about the world other than to spread their legs and shop. They can't clean, cook or even make coffee. These youngsters come into the real world with nothing in their minds except how to play video games, play bed games, buy the newest technology, and expect everything to be handed to them.

What happened to my generation, their parents? Weren't we supposed to teach our children to think and reason? To be better? To be responsible? To be good care takers of the future? Where did the majority of my generation go wrong?

Enough Love in the Night

have i loved you enough
in all these years
to carry you
past or over all the tears
that are yet to come

have i loved you enough
after all this time
for memory to serve
when drugs cloud your mind
in coming days

did i tell you i love you
morning and night
for your heart to be engraved
as the scars of oak trees blight
in moon shadow

how many embraces
will follow you
will you feel them still
when all that is left is the nights dew
the scent on your pillow

have i loved you enough?
how could i have done
the time was too quick
life is too short for anyone
there is not enough love in the night.  

dw~

PEEVED!!!!! Beyond Belief!

What a friggin' day!   I set my alarm for 645am because our first appointment for the day was at 8am.  I should've just stayed in bed!  

We went to the oncologists office and waited to see him for over an hour just to be charged $224 for him to tell us he had to make more tests. A PET scan and another biopsy, because "the tumor is 'highly suspicious of cancer' ", then fill out paperwork.  What!!!!!!  We already knew this!   We actually only spoke to the doctor for about five whole minutes.  Thanks for your time, here have some of our hard earned money we're literally dying to give you!  

So, next Tuesday we get the PET scan, then we have to call the doctor on Thursday (a whole 'nuther week away) to find out what that test means and make another appointment in another week to see him, to set up a plan of action!  By the time they finally figure out and decide it's fuckin' cancer my Joe is gonna be two weeks in the grave and they're gonna say, OH well, we had to be sure!!!!!!!! GAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

But, all anyone says is "it's highly suspicious to be cancer".  No one actually says, "this is cancer" - no one has a plan of action.  no one has any friggin’ clue what to do.  Everyone just asks joe over and over and over again, "How are you feelin' today?"  "How is your mood?"  How the hell do you think he's feeling?  How would your mood be if you had a lung full of shit??????

Then when we get home, the cable is out again, and the phone keeps dropping out again.  So, I’ve finally have had enough of this shit.  so I call BrightHouse expecting nothing out of these nimrods.  but miracle of miracles, they're actually going to do what I want them to do today!...we'll actually have to see if they hold to that promise.  

Then we check the mail to see if our bank card that's going to allow to access the credited money that was stolen from us a while back when our acct was hacked is in the mail.   Of course, despite the fact that the bank said it would be here within seven days,  it is not.  so I've got $400 sitting in the bank that I freakin’ need, man, that I cannot touch for over two weeks.  I get on the phone and I'm talking to someone in India, of all places, cuz there's, of course, no customer service done in the US anymore, and he starts talking to me like I'm some inbred idiot!  Nothin' ticks me off more than being talked down to.  The top of my head started feeling like it was going to blow off!  I swear if I could've fit I'd've gone through that telephone line and throttled that idiot!  

I finally figured out that he was telling me to go to the SVC Manager at the store, get a service check, call back with the card number, get transfer numbers for the check and they would cash it right there at the CSD office in WalMart!  OMG - why the hell didn't they tell me this last week when the credit to my account was made instead of making me wait all this time for a card that isn’t even coming!

"Well, I don't know ma'am, it isn't our policy to...blah blah blah blah blah......" and on and on and on it goes.  

Then when I finally get everything I need in place to do this I get on the phone with another person, who is of course, from India again, and barely understandable, as per usual.  She and I have a VERY difficult time coming to any form of understanding.  I finally get that I have to use my old card number to access another section of the same phone program that she and I are using in order to get the information I need to fill out the check properly.   Humans do not have the authority to access account information for other humans.  Amazing, just amazing.  

All this while, Joe is walking around w/me, having taken his pain meds about an hour before leaving, he is beginning to wear down.  I can hear him start to breath heavier, he's sweating, his color is fading, he's holding his chest, he looks exhausted suddenly.  I ask him if he's okay and he says,

"It's only been 3.5hrs since I took the meds and they're already wearing off."  

It's all because he's been so physically active since he took them.  He's gonna have to wait another 4hrs before he can take another hit, and there's gonna be alot of pain before then.  Ya see, I stress and I get angry and get a headache, maybe have a seizure.  HE stresses and he gets crippling pain, he can't breathe, and he could pass out and end up in the hospital again.   I’ve got to finish this crap up and get him home so he can lie down and relax so the pain level lowers.  

Finally, finally, finally, we’re all done and we’ve gotten home.  Joe’s lying down, watching a movie and we’re still waiting for the Cable Guy.  It’s almost 3pm and I’ve about decided that it’s not gonna happen after all.  Why should it, nothing else is going easy today.  But, I look out the front window and low and behold it’s a damn BrightHouse truck sittin’ out there - HOLY FRIGGIN’ CRAP!!!!!!!  The guy came in puttered around the house, visited with us, laughed with ‘Lena when she started talking with him and asking all kinds of 2yr old questions and making knowledgeable 2yr old statements.  He replaced the modem, fixed our television in the livingroom, reset Joe’s computer, double checked the telephone and made sure everything worked.  He said,

“Well, ma’am, you’re all set and everything should work just fine.  Any other problems just give us a call, we’ll be right out.”  

And I started to cry.  Right there on my damn doorstep I started crying while I was thanking him for his time.  He swore up and down it wasn’t that big of a deal, but I had to explain that he was the only person all day that had done exactly what he’d promised to do.  That it had been a really long and rough day for me, in a series of really long and rough days.  I thanked him again, and gave this tall, skinny 22yr old kid  a quick hug and ran into the house.  

Thankfully, the day is almost over and I can close my eyes on another stressful day!

Mec

05172012

Horse Kick in the Chest

I don’t know how other people handle things like this.  I don’t suppose it really matters, because other people aren’t me.  Other people aren’t Joe, or my daughters.  Other people don’t feel like I do, or have my heart, or experiences, or mind, or perspective on things.  So what other people feel about the same situations in life don’t really matter.  Each occurrence in life is specific to each individual person.  Each person’s perspective makes it particular to that person, so I don’t suppose I even really care what anyone else’s feelings are, or how other people handle things like this.  

For me it was like being kicked in the chest by a young horse unexpectedly.  You know how it is when you have a young horse that you just know is gonna get you one day.  You are totally aware that the potential to be kicked to the moon is always there, but you sort of push it to the back of your mind because there’s life, and there’s every day, and there’s things that need doing, and you just get on with it without ever really considering how hard that kick is going to be when it finally comes along.  Especially since it’s been winding up for a long time, and gaining tension and torque, and leverage behind the hoof.  Then too, you never think about the size of the hoof either.  I mean, at the very beginning, the hoof is small.  It’s the foot of a little foal, about the size of a teacup, how much damage could that do, right?  But after twenty five or twenty six years that damn hoof is the size of a truck tire!  When it comes screaming through the air and smacks into your chest it’s as though the entire world just landed on you.  

Your breath comes flying out in a burning whoosh that never seems to end, until that last choking cry that seems so full of tears that your face seems like someone took a blow torch to it.  It’s an amazing thing, really.  I was truly surprised how much air there is in a pair of lungs.  I’m a long time smoker, pretty soon to be a quit smoker, but I don’t usually consider my lungs particularly filled with air.  But on this morning there was an awful lot of air in there.  When it came rushing out I could actually see the mist like a fine rainfall come down over that hoof.  Something you might see in movie taking place in a jungle set.  Would’ve been pretty if there were plants around.  But there weren’t, just that hoof; that huge truck tire sized hoof planting itself firmly into my chest.  

Then that cry started coming up from somewhere.  At first I wasn’t sure where it was coming from.  I looked around, I thought it was maybe someone else.  But, it wasn’t.  I looked down at my feet and it seemed as if, all of a sudden, the floor was getting awfully far away, awfully wee and small, as the saying goes.  hmm, I think I might’ve laughed at that point except i was too close to weeping.  The cry finally made it out of my mouth but I realized it was going to be too loud, so I put my hand over my mouth to stifle it.  The cry became a groan, or a moan, or a growl maybe.  I don’t really know, some sort of sound that didn’t even sound like me.  I don’t make those sounds, never in my life had I made those sounds.  Not even in the throes of the agonies of childbirth, or toothache, or migraine, or seizure, or for any reason that I can think of.  But this, this horse hoof, this truck tire....



this voice....this disembodied voice over a phone...

this....Doctor T....the oncologist....at the hospital, where we’d been waiting for news for three whole days about my most loved and adored and very nearly worshiped husband....

this truck tire sized horse hoof.... whose name is....

Lung Cancer.....

this....this...this..........



mec~
9122012

My Mother

i sometimes forget, in my distaste (to put it lightly), for my mother that there is, after all, something good and bad i get from her.  this something is a thing i've mistakenly passed onto my daughters.  i say mistakenly because it's something i suffer for, lol. 

my mother was the most impatient woman in the world.  she would wait for "her man" to notice that something manly needed doing.  if he didn't notice it, she'd mention it off handedly, and if it didn't get done within a reasonable amount of time (like immediately if not sooner) she would do it herself.  in the most pissed off and humiliatingly (to her man) manner possible.  whatever the job was, raking leaves, fixing holes in the wall, laying carpet, tearing down a garage, she would get it done with whatever tools were at hand.  hammers, screwdrivers, duct tape, her six kids, whatever it took she did it.  once she got started she absolutely DID NOT want him underfoot.  he was extraneous flesh at that point, useless.   she taught us not to tolerate weakness, laziness, shiftlessness, in ourselves.  if there's work to be done, get up and do it because no one else is gonna do it for you.  lol 

we kids took a BEATING in the work department, that's for sure.  we learned the limitless uses of duct tape.  the girls learned there wasn't a damn thing a man could do that a woman couldn't do at least as well, if not better, given the time and tools.  we learned that we didn't need a man to take care of us, although that was what was expected of us anyway, to marry and produce children, and be obedient, subservient wives.  as time went on we just became this, bull-workers.  this is what we do. 

today, i'm out in the yard, cleaning it.  i told joe i didn't want his help at all, because he works so hard at wally world and he doesn't need to be doing this too.  so i'm out their tossing trash, moving logs, moving lawn furniture, pulling tarps, bull work.  i'll pay for it later, i'll have to use ice, and the tens unit, and the shoulder is gonna be screaming.  but THIS is the thing my mother taught me and it just happens almost without even thinking about it.  and what do my daughters do?  not a thing. 

they know that i won't ask for help.  they know i don't really want or need it.  they know even if i need a glass of water, i'll come in and get it myself, because deep inside i still (even now) have a little streak of my mothers Martyr Complex.  GAG!!!!!!!  and i work this hard just to suffer and say to my husband, "see what i did because you couldn't...wouldn't". 

the very worst thing about this is that my daughters will do this very same thing to their spouses.  my mother, no matter how long i stay away, no matter how soon she passes or how long she's gone, will live on forever.  what a terrible thought. 

dw~

No Kill Nation

do you know why No Kill Nation is so difficult? people. it's not that it's so hard to just stop killing the animals. it's not that no one can afford to actually take care of the shelters. it's not that no one cares about the shelter animals.

it's people that own the animals that DO NOT spay/neuter their pets. if you are not a registered, responsible, breeder you DO NOT need to have you pet... intact. cats n dogs are not like people, they don't "enjoy" sex. they are "driven" to propagate. when they're intact it's painful if they DON'T breed, both physically and psychologically. that's why they become aggressive. unlike wild animals who have seasonal times of 3 or 4 months out of an entire year, pets are constantly within season. it's bred into them BY HUMANS to be this way. it's called domestication.

breeding for animals isn't even pleasant. for humans sex is GREAT, who doesn't like a good roll in the hay a couple times a week or more? i've never been one to turn it down. but if you ever watch animals, it certainly isn't fun. cats claw, bite, scream, shriek. dogs bite, scream, cry. ever hear of a "rape stand" for pit bulls? horses tear each other to pieces leaving horrible scars. cattle are so dangerous to each other that most ranchers do artificial insemination, and most race horses owners do it that way too so as to avoid injury to their animals.

take a look at the puppy section of the MDAS page. most of those puppies are dead today. none of them are over 6mos old. they were killed because the owners of their parents were thoughtless, careless, lazy, or wanted to have "a wonderful family experience". watch a damn video! want a moving experience, hold one of these babies as it dies on a cold steel table in a strange place w/a hundred strange dogs screaming and barking in the other room.

i go to sleep at night and i watch these little dark eyes passing one pair at a time. i hear tiny toenails tapping away on the stones. i hear whimpering in the dark. i reach out my hand and all i feel is a wisp of a passing cool breeze. they're gone. they're all gone because not enough people are responsible enough to give a shit for anything or anyone but their own convenience.

i'm tired.

Ashes and Dust.

Someone asked me: Just how will our end come; Stand-esk, or more along the lines of Robert McAmmons Swan Song?

I find it an interesting subject. Humanity's end. I love watching disaster movies, like, Day After Tomorrow or 2012. I like watching them mostly because I like catching where they get the science wrong. Like climate change, neutrino morphology, weather patterns, prehistoric weather and geologic history and patterns in comparison to what we see today.

I love hearing that people think that everything happening now is NEW. When our last ICE AGE actually happened in the 1800's and before that when Washington was crossing the Delaware. They happened because of volcanoes that went off half a world away and created severe climate change that affected the entire world. Nature happens. All the time. Everyday. We can't stop it. We can't interfere with it. We can't alter it.

Today there was a HUGE, heretofore never seen, solar flare that was like an earthquake on the sun. So large it created a corona around the sun and knocked out cable, internet and phone service, as well as satellites for GPS. All our knowledge, experience and technology is NOTHING in the face of Nature. Humans are so very arrogant. We think we are the movers and shakers of the universe and all we are is grains of sand slipping through the sieve of time, unnoticed, unheard, unfelt.

How we go matters only to us, because we'll do it to ourselves. But one way or another we will go and all else will be as before we came.

It is as has been said, we are only, Ashes and Dust.

The Love I Bear

I am brought to my knees
by the crushing weight
of the love I bear you.

My eyes are seared from their sockets
by the acid tears shed in rage
at the love I bear you.

The very soul of my being
is torn from the moorings of my body
by the depths of sorrow

of the love I bear you.

Mec 1292011

That Baby

It was a hellish night. Almost no sleep with the granddaughter teething like a 'gator, alternately crying and snotting or crying and biting. I haven't, even now, figured out which is worse. At least with her crying and snot draining down my shoulder I wasn't bleeding from those too little razor sharp incisors cutting into my shoulder. I am always shocked at the immense pressure a 10 month old baby can put into those bites.

Finally, she fell asleep. Fitful, but asleep. I was finally able to, sort of, curl around her and start dozing off myself. Joe's deafening snores were already drifting across the covers, probably what lulled her off to lala-land. I could almost feel myself slowly stumbling off into that dark corner of my mind where there is no light, no sound, only quiet coolness and soft breezes in the trees, and then...

Suuuuuuuu-MACK! Right in the left eye and across the bridge of my nose. OH MY GODS! I was seeing stars in my left eye! My eyelashes were poking INTO my freaking eyeball like tiny needles! My sinuses were about ready to pop out of my face! Then I heard it, once it got past the ringing in my head. The shriek. The shriek of a young animal in high terror as a lion is about to drag it down on the plains of Africa and rip it's throat out! Oh, geeze, that's not it, it was just the baby waking up AGAIN! Somehow or other, deep in her subconscious she realized I was getting close to being comfortable, and it was time for her to wake up and terrorize me. So there I was, snapped awake by a roundhouse slap that would've made Jane Crawford proud at about 120am. For the third time since we went to bed at 1100pm.

Well, what do you do with a crying infant when she's so upset and obviously in pain, when you yourself are also in pain by the very same crying infant? Well, you could just put her in the play pen and let her work things out for herself....you could give her a good solid whack on the diaper and say "GO TO SLEEP!", like so many surely do....or you could do what I actually really did. Pick her up unravel her blankie from around her arms and legs, wipe all the accumulated snot and tears from her face, give her a kiss on the cheek and hold on your shoulder and proceed to join her with your own tears and snot. Because in all actuality, we're both just too tired and upset to work any harder at anything else.

Finally, thankfully, baby's mommy comes home from work at 2am or so. By this time I can't see straight enough to even be able to read the clock. Between the lack of sleep, being smacked around by a baby, and the number of shed tears, my eyes just don't work right anymore. But I do see her walk in the bedroom in her pristine white shirt looking for all the world like an angel of mercy come to give me my release to heaven. In this case, my release to the haven of sleep. She says to me,

"Mom, is everything okay? Are you okay?"

And of course, I can't tell her how really abusive her sweet little daughter has been. Well, because I adore my granddaughter, and I just couldn't say a negative thing about her. She's my little angel-baby. It's not her fault that she freaking hates me tonight! So I tell her,

"I'm fine honey, just a little tired. The baby has had a really hard night and she's very, very tired. You should take her right upstairs and get her right back to sleep."

Lovely girl that she is, she gently takes the baby from my arms, I kiss the babe goodnight and they quietly leave my room. I am left in the dark with my wonderful stentoriously snoring husband to finally fall asleep. Yet, when I lay my head on my feather pillows, my eyes remain wide open. Even the left one, still stinging from the lash-burns. I lay there, and lay there. I cover my head with my pillow. I can't breathe, so I take it off and turn over on my belly. Nothing. No Sleep. Not even relaxation. Why wasn't his snoring putting me to sleep too?! I will never sleep again. I will forever be exhausted. It's all because of THAT BABY!

Then all of a sudden I glanced up and over at the clock and surprisingly it was 730am. It was no longer 4am. Ahh, i had slept after all. Somehow, some way, I had finally passed out and slept the sleep of the comatose. It will be a good day. I wonder if my daughter works tonight or if it's her night off....

Mental Pause

I went to the doctor a couple of weeks ago. Not something I usually enjoy, but this visit was unusually pleasant. She didn't poke and prod, or stick things in me that obviously didn't fit. For a measly $168 and five minutes of her time she walked in and said,

"All your tests came back fine. You're right where you should be. You're perfectly healthy. Here are your regular 'scripts, we're all done." and turned around and walked back out the door she walked in through.

That was it. I had waited a full two hours and fifteen minutes to hear that, the money comes out of my insurance and bank account like shit out of a goose no matter how long she takes. But, lucky for me, the news was all good. Especially after the months of hypochondria I had previously spent. Let me in enlighten you.

I'm 48.5 years old. I have three daughters. Anyone with all sons, no daughters, sisters, granddaughters, nieces, girl relatives of any kind, please consider yourselves among the blessed of women. Female relatives are amongst the most vicious of creatures ever placed on the skin of the planet. I love my daughters, to the point of death. I truly mean that sometimes i could just kill them, slowly painfully, for all the mean things they tell me. But that would be illegal, and I enjoy my freedom.

But i digress.

At 48.5 years of age I suddenly came to the conclusion that I was well past being young anymore. I have to color my hair every month. I had to learn how to use makeup for "the middle-aged face", which by the way is much different than for a twenty something. I've always been a natural frump, so my clothing didn't change that much, but all of a sudden I was the grown up I never thought I'd see in the mirror. One day, just when I least needed to be reminded, my monthly visit from Aunt Flo didn't show up. My youngest daughter tells me,

"Guess it's time to break out the little broom and dust pan to collect all the dust backing up in there!" shakes her head and walks away.

I stand there dumbfounded that someone who supposedly loves me would say that. But of course, she's only nineteen, what could she possibly know. Until the next month rolls around, and no Aunt Flo again. My youngest strolls by, stops, looks at me, shakes her head and strolls off again cup of tea in hand.

"Getting old must be so difficult."

Now I do expect a fair amount of sympathy from someone. Maybe my oldest daughter, she's all of 23, maybe she has some feeling for me. We're standing on the front steps while I'm having a smoke and she's just home from work. I'm telling her about my missing visitor, and she pipes up and reminds me of some thing I was supposed to do. I tell her oh, I forgot to do that, i'll take care of it after supper tonight.

"Oh, don't worry about it mom, it's just that old mental-pause thing ya got going on! " and busts out laughing to point she falls off the step!

Okay, no sympathy there. Maybe Joe. My husband is almost always a good shoulder to cry on. One night we're in bed watching a movie. Some chick flick I think, because I was sitting there with tears standing on my cheeks, I hate that. He tells me he thinks I've been a little preoccupied lately and wonders why that might be. Now's my chance, so I tell him how I've been feeling so old and like a train wreck lately. My body doesn't feel like mine anymore, nothing is working the way it should, and then I start to cry for real, because suddenly it dawns on me that I really am getting older and I'm not okay with that.

He gently pulls me to his chest, he always smells so good and his arms are always so comforting. He brushes the tears from my cheeks and kisses my hair and lets me cry for a little bit. Somehow he always knows that sometimes just crying makes things better. Now I would really like to just stop right there and leave it to sound so sweet and wonderful, but that's not how it ended. There's always just one more thing.

He lifts up my chin and kisses me tenderly on the lips and says to me,

"It's okay honey, I'm not worried. I'll love you no matter how old and wrinkly you get. And if Aunt Flo never shows up again that's okay too! We can have ALOT more sex!"