Monday Priestess

Monday, Monday
Can't trust that day...

Those words of the old song by the Mamas & the Papas was running through my mind this morning.

I countered the gloom of the song with the fact that Monday is named for the Moon. I bid her come to me and made a place for her.

I followed the moon with my thoughts. I moved with her faces. I felt her essence deep in my spine strengthening me.

The dance of the moon through the night, and through the day, reminds me of how in an instant things can change. How things can appear one way and the next time you look it's different. Or it has disappeared all together.

A full moon can be romantic when you're in love. But to a shapeshifting werewolf, it's frightening. To his victim, even more so...

But changing things don't have to be great big milestones for the perspective to shift. For truth to hit you in the face like a chunk of ice traveling through the night from that cold distant far side.

Even little things can have that huge of an impact...a tiny splinter, the bite of an insect, a drop of hot oil. Your first reaction is always "I should have seen it coming."

But you didn't, and you don't, and life goes on.

The meal I planned for tonight is simmering, bubbling happily and fragrantly. My husband is home early and lighting the fire. In a few minutes, two of my favorite people, the youngest of my children, and their +1's will enter through the kitchen door like wings, or flower petals, or leaves blown in by the wind. I wish for always and forever more and more and more wings, and petals, and leaves to come.

I will love the moment and hold it tenderly because it will not last forever.

The Balcony

One fine day, while exploring the ruins of an ancient house in Andalusia, I found a slim diary tucked between the broken railings of the old vine-covered balcony. The vine secured it in place, it's tendrils extending around it tenderly in a loving caress. The paper of the old journal resembled the color of the dry leaves, and I opened it cautiously, afraid the brittle pages would crumble. Many pages were missing, but the paper held fast, and the ink was still clear enough to read. The inside cover was plainly titled "Jose's diary" in the simple hand of a literate but poor man. But as I exposed the pages to the light of day, a curious thing happened - a faint, silvery writing appeared. The writing reminded me of Moroccan script embellished like an elaborate and elegant embroidery. My find was apparently a diary within a diary with two narratives unfolding simultaneously...

Jose's diary -
I approached my house on an old donkey, coming home after a long trip to the city of Jerez. Mi niña, la luz de mi vida, stood on the balcony waiting impatiently. Seeing her filled me with love, and I gently urged my mount to plod along a little faster, wishing but for a moment I still had my Palomino.

~~ Evelina clung to the railing of the upper balcony, the knuckles on her small fingers bulging, as she tightened and loosened her grip with joyful anticipation.

Releasing her grip, she clapped her hands, squealing and jumping with delight. ~~

"Papi, Papi, Papi!" Evelina jumped up and down with such vigor I thought the blue-black ringlets of her hair glinted with ribbons the color of a summer sky.

~~ Her thin legs, knees two prominent knobs of bone wrapped tightly in flesh the color well baked biscuits, bumped against each other and against the wood slats of the banister.

In her excitement Evelina failed to notice the balcony groaned and creaked beneath her.

Flickers of old, dingy paint chipped off as the ruffled edge of her short slip brushed again and again with every excited jump, the balcony feeling the strain.

A rain darkened cloud, hanging so low it seemed to drape like a cloak over the tops of the chestnut trees, obscured the sunlight, and for a moment the figure of her daddy disappeared while washed in shadow giving the impression that the homecoming had been but a figment of her imagination. Evelina paused.

The balcony exhaled with sudden relief, the movement - the ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ka-thunk, ceasing -only to resume within a few seconds.

The balcony sighed. ~~

I dismounted, got down on one knee, and threw my arms open wide in the familiar theatrical gesture Evelina so loved.

"Mi niña, mi amor. Que delirio me da verte!" I touched my hand to my lips and blew her a kiss. She mimicked me in response.

My beautiful girl loves the stage. She wants to be a Flamenco dancer when she grows up, but in truth, she already can out-dance some of the most accomplished local dancers. Her spindly legs are quick and strong, and soon enough, they will grow into the shapely legs of a young woman.

"Play for me, Papi! Sing me a new song!"

~~ The balcony braced for the onslaught of staccato steps that would soon smatter the expanse of splintering wooden slats as Evelina rushed to discard her boots and strap on her dancing shoes. ~~

I slid my guitar out of my threadbare bedroll and strummed a slow and melancholy tune. Evelina protested petulantly.

~~ The balcony momentarily blossomed with hope. ~~

 "Que pasa, mi amor?" I smiled with mock innocence and reaching into my well-worn saddle bag tossed a small muslim bag to my little girl. She startled but for a second, then swift as a raven caught the surprise.

~~ Evelina squealed louder and more excitedly than before. Her father had brought home a new pair of castanets. They were expertly made of ebony, instead of the traditional chestnut, shaped like seashells, and artfully engraved with Moroccan flourishes resembling delicate silver vines. The touch of her little hands on the castanets released a sound that could only be described as a flutter of wings descending. Those wings gently enfolded her soul, and then releasing it, placed a tiny fleck of that shimmering light in the hollow curve of each castanet. ~~

"Mi niña, como una estrella, you light my way with your joy. Te quiero, mi amor!"

~~ The balcony, mesmerized with genuine delight and admiration, forgot the pain of age and poverty.  The lightheartedness and devotion of the pair evoked something humble in the decrepit structure -  this father travels far seeking work, this little girl waits alone - and feeling humility, a sweet forbearance soon spread through the declining framework, mellowing and maturing the wood with renewed strength and endurance. ~~

Jose's last entry -
My dear Evelina, you father's faith in himself is nourished by the simple trust in your shining eyes. My little girl, your love brings me hope. I believe somehow we will make it through these fallow times. I believe because you believe.

Novice - fx

fx - french kiss. I'm sure you know how...but why? (I mean, for reasons besides the obvious erotic ones).

Apparently, there are at least a few good reasons, and, like a good ending, I won't spoil it by telling you what they are. Just google 'why french kiss'.

Or, if you want to be really adventuresome, (and have some time to kill), look it up on a public computer and leave the tab open. Then, as inconspicuously as possible, sit close by with a newspaper stuck in front of your face, poke two little eyeholes in it, and spy.

If that's too inconvenient, (where after all do you get a newspaper nowadays, and not to mention very conspicuous), pretend to text. Your mission is to escape detection.

(Now, I bet you googled it before continuing to read this blog. Couldn't wait, huh? Heh, heh.)

Back at the public computer, however, the subject of your surveillance will be wondering who on earth would bother to look up 'why french kiss' and has come to the conclusion that it must have been the teeny-boppers congregating at the far end of the library, or internet cafe.

"How fortunate for them to have this information so readily at their disposal!" the unsuspecting subject thinks with kindly amusement...or so you hope.

Your foray into the world of black op will end here because before you know it 'french kiss' has you on a clandestine mission to memory land.

Back, back, back you go into the annals of your past, and dig up the memory of your very first ever french kiss.

How was it?

YUK!? or WOW!?

I have to admit I remember the kiss but not the name of the boy who kissed me. I even remember the place. This might give you a hint as to how I'd rate my first ever french kiss. Ok, that's a spoiler. But I'd rather lavish ink on describing how it came about...

The year - 1968.

Our rendezvous location was picked by my best friend that year. The boy she was to 'hook up with', (to use today's apropos vernacular), was a friend of my soon-to-be personal tour guide into the world of kissing.

The anticipation was driving me crazy.

My friend's name was Linda Greene. She was 5'2", with a cute little pug nose and a smattering of freckles. Her eyes were not blue, but brown, which she loved due to the popularity of Van Morrison's song: "My Brown-Eyed Girl." Linda had very long eye lashes and to make them 'curly', used an eyelash curler, which I detested, because it gave her cause to flirt by batting her eyes.

She once asked, "If you could only have one article of make-up, what would it be?"

"Lipstick," I replied without hesitation.

"Oh, no, no, no! Mascara!" she said with the sound judgment of a worldly fourteen year old. "You should always pick mascara!"

"Why?" 

She responded with a batting of the eyes.

Linda arranged for us to meet the two boys out in front of the local movie theater. We were not yet allowed to date, so our plans were made in secret...and in broad daylight. This posed a big problem for our covert operation into the risqué world of grown-ups. But she solved this readily by leading us to the sylvan back side of a local sanitarium for the mentally ill.

It was always like this - Linda furtively lead into unexplored worlds, and I, for better or for worse, followed.

When we reached our destination she commanded me and 'my' boy,

"Go over there!" and pointed down the narrow width of sidewalk where heavy brush was encroaching. I knew she meant, keep your distance, but don't stray too far. We had previously agreed this was to be a safe trial run, should either boy get too carried away, we would have each other's back.

"Ok", I responded shakily. Anticipation had eroded into anxiety, and yet I remained resolutely determined.

The boy and I squared off facing each other. I noticed we were about the same height. As if on cue, we each tilted our heads to our right and, in an effort to avoid further embarrassment, quickly locked lips. And then it happened...the french kiss.

I pulled back within the space of a second, leaving him stranded with tongue sticking out in mid air.

Then...I ran away...which meant Linda had to decide whether to follow me or continue smooching with her willing participant.

I wish I could remember what she did, but I think I suffered my first episode of PTSD....

But it does beg the question - had Google existed in 1968, and  I knew then what I know today, might I have been better prepared to stick it out a bit longer?

Novice - "a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia"

I know I'm on to something when coincidences pop up.

I want to write about schizophrenia and tell no one. The next morning a friend shares this quote:

"Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia," E. L. Doctorow

Oh, yeah, I'm definitely on to something, only now I'm going in a different direction than I thought.

From Wikipedia - Schizophrenia is a mental disorder often characterized by abnormal social behavior and failure to recognize what is real.

Ha! Who wrote that? A woefully inadequate description. Too general. Tell me there isn't a time when you didn't fit this description?

But never mind that. To write is to want to spend much time alone. 

Oh, oh, is she isolating again?  What concerned family would once have whispered at Sunday meals, they now might text to one another.

I crave solitude so I can write. A novice writer has to write a lot. Not everything is publish-worthy, or good, or even worth reading. But writing has to be practiced, and to do it I need time. 

Getting the time is the issue.

It means I have to give up something. What can I cut out of my schedule today? Do I get up earlier and cut sleep? That's the worst choice for me for lack of sleep means I will have a very difficult time recognizing what is real.

Do I skip breakfast? Lunch? Dinner? Skipping meals is purportedly not a good idea, plus can be viewed as abnormal social behavior. 

"What, are you depressed, or are just you too snobby to go to lunch with us?" people might wonder and accuse, as if I could be permanently damaged by reduced social engagement. However, I'm delusional enough to conclude consensual reality is realer than real and trumps it every time. 

Skipping dinner is out of the question - hubby insists we eat together - this I recognize as very real.

What about work? I ask myself. Can I work faster, delegate, quit? If you know anything about me, you know the issues this option could potentially stir up. If you don't, excuse me for not bothering with details here, just know there's a lot of neurotic elements involved. And all in my mind, I admit.

Skipping my solitary daily walks when my mind is free to wander through worlds as yet unseen by the collective? Absolutely not an option!

So, here's what I decide is my solution:

You know all the hours one can spend worrying, re-living betrayal, re-telling friends the injustices - real or imagined - one suffers? This I am tenderly, but with meticulous obsession cutting out like a bad sugar habit. This socially acceptable form of living called normal just has to be ignored and treated like the narcissistic illusion it really is.

It's incredible how many hours I now have freed up to write...and be acceptably schizophrenic.

Novice - Adagio

I walk with measured steps up the steep slope. One long switchback that seems to never end.

There is not a drop of grace in my body. My shoulders are hunched. I'm hot, I'm panting, my heart is beating much faster than my normal 65 to 70 beats per minutes.

If the top of this climb isn't around the next bend I'm turning around.

The top isn't around the next bend. There's more climbing. I stop to breathe and feel my heart beat in my ears. I'm sweating buckets. I gulp water. But I don't turn around.

I think about why I'm here, climbing. I come for peace. I come for the peace of the mountains. I come for the peace of getting as far as I can from the sound of cars and the nuisance of dogs barking for no reason. But to get that peace I have to climb, slowly around another bend, and then another.

I cheer myself up by telling myself I am doing really well. I am gaining 600 feet of elevation per mile. I'll be there soon.

'There' refers to a spring hidden under the shade of scrub oaks and the native plants of the chaparral.

This is my first time visiting the spring. I seek to solve a riddle. I want to know how hundreds of years passed and people went beyond survival to flourishing without plumbing. I want to know how they found peace without borrowing, buying, and stealing water from other places.

I don't turn around.

I find the determination to take more steps, and round yet another turn. The sound of my breath, fast, shallow, labored, a sharp contrast to the sound of my feet, slow, heavy, plodding. Both a reminder that the peace I seek is possible, less because of my hiking skills, and more because of the lyrical beauty of the trail urging me along.

I am climbing for peace, I'm climbing for water.

I imagine the hidden movement of water deep beneath my feet even though the aquifers winding slowly, sinuously, are tapped so the water can be channeled here and there to houses in the city. I'm not sure I will find water in these drought conditions but I seek it nevertheless.

I reach the top, and let my tired eyes sweep over the view of the valleys. A long moment of pleasure and satisfaction. I have about another half mile to go, but thankfully it's downhill till I reach the ribbon of thick, green oaks. There is the promise of water there.

I do not hurry.

The closer I get the more gently expressive the presence of peace. Birds chirp in the trees and nothing more. Then a breeze ruffles through the oaks and only crisp, biscuit-colored leaves fall. I move closer to the place where water would be, would flow. Three plump mushrooms in various stages of fertile rot decay in the dusky shade.

The light of the sun is dimmed by the large canopy of oaks, but, where it filters through the spaces between leaves, I catch a glimpse of water. It's a puddle where insects thrive and, making lazy swirls around my head, question my intrusion. I keep a respectful distance from two small black hooded birds that are bathing.

I walk up along the side of the dry creek bed and see a second puddle, and walk a little more and see a third. Slow, dark, silent waters with bright spots of light reflecting here and there.

I can't continue to the source because the oaks, now crowded together like a church choir, are bedecked with bright colorful poison oak. Sigh.

Downtempo...slow down, down, down...no more seeking. Lento. Largo. Adagio.

Novice - Tabula rasa

Tabula rasa.

I'm going to change the meaning of this.

I realize I think of it as empty, sterile,white paper.

Today I'm looking beyond the paper, the screen, all variations of the blank slate. I'm even looking beyond psychological and philosophical definitions of the mind.

I'm looking at tabula rasa as my audience. As who I write for. It's liberating.

I'm not concerning myself with who reads what I write. Maybe I'm getting narcissistic in my old age.

But it's not that I don't care about you.

It's just that when I think of you as an audience my words change. The words I wanted to write are discarded, deleted.

And it's not that I don't want to communicate in a meaningful way.

I want to see what happens when I publish my thoughts. Unedited. I want to see what happens to me.

Do I feel naked?

When I push the thought of an audience aside, my eyes gazing without preconception at tabula rasa,
I feel...well... holy.

A microcosm of creation.

Then, little sparks of light shining like stars on the night sky pop up. My husband, my friend, my sister writer.

Tiny constellations.

Faint at first, then brighter. Then some fade from view again spinning round and away.

And then a vast dark seemingly endless sky is my audience.

Tabula rasa transformed into deep space...dark void...swirling...

I'm starting to feel the difference...there's no wrong way, right way, good way, bad way...tabula rasa receives me...

Novice - You don't have to like it

Writing is like eating vegetables.

As a kid I never ate vegetables.

My Cuban mom thought vegetables referred to avocados and tomatoes drenched with olive oil and sprinkled with salt.

Mom's idea of good nutrition was ice cold smoothies made with Coca Cola, sweetened condensed milk, and cafe cubano.

My baby teeth rotted, but that was normal.

Then we came to America and I grew up to be a good American mother. I made my kids eat vegetables.

"Mo-o-o-o-om" they wail, "I don't like broccoli."

"That's ok, you don't have to like it, you just have to eat it. Tell you what, I'll take a bite, then you take a bite."

I put broccoli in my mouth and chew it like I love it.

"Hmmm, yummy, yummy. Now your turn."

"Why are  you making them eat that?" mom chides. "They don't like it. Give them rice. They love rice."

"Mo-o-o-o-om", my turn to wail. "How many times do I have to tell you? They don't have to like it."

My children learned to be wary of sugar, balance their meals, and eat what they didn't like.

They are all grown now. The dining room table is mostly a place to write. And I don't like everything I write. But I am told writing is good for me. So I belly up to the table and chew on my words, my stomach churning.


I suspect that given my sweet tooth, if I were to like everything I write, it would end up rotting my fangs. I'd have to gum my way through life, and smile only when I wear dentures.

I feed myself through writing. I feed myself raw vegetables and gnaw on bones. And I don't have to like it.

See, there's something bigger than me that bids me write. Something that gives me what I like, as well as what I don't like. That BIG something is wild and bloody and covered with fur and thinks that for me to concern myself with likes and dislikes is silly and superficial. The BIG something doesn't care about that, there's no wisdom or sustenance in it. This BIG something wants to pull me out of the amniotic sac I've been floating in, lick me clean so I can gasp for air, gnaw a bone, and learn to write.

The gnawing on bones part? This I did learn from my mom.