I get tired of writing about myself so today I decided to write some flash fiction. 

           

          Colleen stands before the kitchen calendar counting the days till Christmas. A month since Daylight Savings Time ended but she's still trying to adjust to dark afternoons. Yesterday she didn't see a group of kids walking in the road until she was right upon them.  She came around a corner and there they were, like a small herd of cows bumping into each other in their dark clothes. She hit the brakes just in time. The screech sounded like an injured animal. Her wrists prickled with fear.

          "No one can see you!" she yelled at them, rolling down her window.

          The kids scurried to the weedy shoulder, and looked at her with open mouths.           

          "Really," she said more softly. "You should wear reflectors." 

          She could see now that they were young teens and one of them was a girl   with a pale face and big dark eyes. The girl blinked. "Sorry," she said softly.

          "Do you need a ride?" Colleen asked. 

          The kids looked at each other and back at her without answering.

          "I'm Colleen MacDonald, I live just down the road, the blue house on the hill?" 

          "Oh yeah," one of the boys said. "We're sorry about your son."

          "Do you need a ride?" Colleen asked again.  The kids looked at each other then the girl nodded. Colleen unlocked the doors.  The girl got in the front seat. Three boys piled in to the back. Colleen accelerated slowly, breathing in the scent of youth. She wished she could stop the car, reach over and embrace the girl, draw her close and absorb her ignorant vitality. 

          What would these children do with their unspent days? Did they sense, as she did, how time gobbles up moments until everything you think you have is gone?  One day you're a family, the next day you're floating, observing yourself standing in your kitchen staring at the calendar.  

          

Moon in Virgo

Every month I have a sense of relief when the moon moves into Virgo. Finally I can get something done. I breeze through the day, checking items off my mental list, the list that swims in my mind at four a.m. I'm always happier doing than thinking about what needs to be done.

Today I saw a picture of the house my husband is living in, with a woman he's fallen in love with. I can hardly call her a girlfriend, she's nearly seventy-years-old. To me it looks like he's finally found the mother he always wanted.   One of the things I liked best when I met him was he called his Mother every Sunday. He was a good, loyal son. He respected women. When I met her less than a year after we were married she poked him in the stomach and said "Looks like you've put on some weight." No hugs. Me she called a "string of spit."

Today I look at a picture of the house my husband is living in, a small stone house on a golf-course, 

short-shorn green a few little shrubs. Completely exposed.

I walk outside into our yard, I mean my yard, where cicadas' electric hum fills the wide open air. My beloved silver maple is still stuffed with leaves. They wave to me, that say admire me, which I do.

My yard contains my beloved white-muzzled dog, a dog my husband never liked, a dog who adores him, and the cat who came to us starving eight years ago. Both of them relaxed, but alert to the sounds and smells around them.  

Clustered under the maple's shade, rows of blue and black containers still burst with life, my husband's vegetable garden. Will it die this winter, along with our marriage? Or will I become a gardener now, in my autumn years?

Catching Up

In the months since I last posted on this blog my mother had a stroke and was unable to speak but has since recovered somewhat. She had her ninety-third birthday in April and is getting excellent, loving care from her round-the-clock caregivers and the staff at Ocean House. On my visit last weekend we sat on the roof/deck (she in her wheelchair) and took in the breathtaking view of sunny Santa Monica Bay with walkers, joggers, skaters and a few wetsuit-clad surfers  languidly waiting for waves. When I got home from the trip I sent Mother a pair of silver shoes which she wore yesterday to "Happy Hour," and got many compliments.

On what would have been my father's 97th birthday, April 3rd, (he passed away in 2010), my memoir Posing for My Father was published. I did not select this date, it just worked out that way.  The book tells of my life growing up in the home/studio of famous photographers.  Though not great at promotion I did schedule a reading at Beyond Baroque in Venice (during the mom-visit) with two of my California poet friends. We had a good turnout and I sold some books, even to total strangers!

On September 14th my husband of twenty-one years moved in with an older woman he met just about a month before. In the last six weeks I've gone through more emotions that I knew I had -- shock, anger, grief, relief, wonder, jealousy, sadness, hope, confusion, numbness, nausea, insomnia, hysteria, rage, forgiveness, disorientation – some emotions hang around for a few hours, others come and go in minutes.

I've done a lot of writing and talking to girlfriends.  The best part of going through a hard time is connecting with friends, both old and new.  Everyone, and I mean everyone, has a sad story.  By the time we're in our sixties we've all had heartache and loss.

Because he has a home office we've agreed that he will continue to come to work each day and then leave at night. Don't know how long this will go on. Some days I dread seeing his car pull into the driveway (I can see the street from my office window). Other days, perhaps I've had a good night's sleep and am feeling rested and happy, I'm glad to have his male presence in the house.

I have not told my mom or her caregivers about any of this. John put up a curtain rod for me this week and plans to cover the pool this weekend. I can usually say something about him when I call. I wore my wedding ring when I traveled but took it off when I got home. Still feels weird. Being a wife was so much a part of my identity.  On bad days I think, what if I slip in the tub or have a heart attack and no one finds me for days . . .

What I realize is that the John I miss is the Coarsegold John – he who cleared that beautiful land so we could build my dream home, and how he maintained it for the ten years we lived there. My favorite image of him is the view I had walking up the trail west of the driveway and seeing him barrel up the drive on his red tractor. I also love the memory of him in his white socks and underpants, in the garage with the door open to that magnificent view, working on his speakers.

But that John is no more. Now he has a life with someone I've never met, a widow, four-years older than us, who he says likes his snoring. Twenty-five years ago, when I was single I wrote a poem about my mother. Some of the lines echo in my mind now –

she likes having

the warm body in the bed

I choose a bed

big enough to thrash around in

and I do

What do I miss? Going out to eat on Saturday nights and having leftovers the next day, sitting on the deck with John listening to the birds, with the dog and cat nearby. 

Other than that, I don't miss the political lectures where I was not allowed to disagree. I don't miss the hateful glares and days on end when he would ignore me because I'd pissed him off.  I don't miss him saying, "I gotta find you a boyfriend," when I approached him for a hug.

For years I've grown used to sleeping alone, eating alone, showering and bathing alone, dancing alone, walking my dog alone, going to church alone, watching TV and listening to the radio alone, reading alone, writing  alone – including the poem for our yearly Christmas card.

On this cloudy Saturday morning I sit alone at my desk, with my dog and cat peacefully sleeping nearby. Today I'll work on the new Hill Country Poets anthology for our November 10th reading at the library, and tonight I get to take pictures at the Harvest Moon fundraiser for Riverside Nature Center. 

Perhaps I'll have a good dream tonight, like the one I had night-before-last, of swimming in a beautiful clear green swimming pool with a tiny green frog and a dark green turtle the size of my hand.

Today in Kerrville

"I look like a bug," I say to the cute, young, male clerk at Walmart, who leans against the frame display. "Oh well, they can't be any worse than these," I say, taking them off and putting back on my even bigger dark glasses.

          He nods.

          "You're not supposed to say that!" I cry. "You're supposed to help me decide."

          He shrugs.

          I turn toward the seated, young, female clerk with long, black-hair "I need a woman's help!" I say.  Then I see she's on the phone.

          "Oh, sorry!" I say to her; then to my clerk, "I'll take them!"

          He says, "Are you sure?"

          "Yes. I hate making decisions. They'll be fine."

          We sit. He asks my birth date and types it in, then my first name.

          "Your prescription expired," he says.

          "What! I can't believe this! I thought they're supposed to last a year! I just got my eyes checked three months ago!"

          "This one's from 2011," he says.

          "Oh, then, here. . . " I open my wallet and find the new prescription.

          The customer, who was seated across from the female clerk, but hidden to me by her computer, stands.  Now I see he has long, grey scraggly hair and a short grey-and-white beard. He's a little stooped and approaches shyly.

          "Excuse me for saying," he says, "but you would look good in anything."

          I want to say, You really must need glasses!  but I'm gracious and say, "Oh, you're so sweet," as he turns and leaves.

          To my cute young clerk I say, "I almost said 'I used to look good in nothing' but I stopped myself."

          He chuckles. He may be thinking, Yuck, what a sick old woman. But, maybe not. Maybe he's thinking I bet you did.  

II.

          Today in Kerrvile, I tore a sheet from a little cube tablet in the kitchen. The sheet underneath says, Cube bought 12-15-02 in my handwriting.  I like that I wrote a note to my future self, just like I used to do when I was a kid.

          Someone recently asked me, "Do you write every day," and I said no but then I told her I write in my diary every night, so that's writing.  I also write dialog in my head every day, practicing what I will say when I call my mother. I want to have something bright and cheerful to tell. I don't want to talk about her fragile life, her weakening body, her diminished mind.

          So I call in the afternoon, when the day has had time to bring me a gift that I can share with my mother, even if it's only over the phone.

Jury Duty

          My first reaction when I see the pale, dark-haired kid hunched over the table, looking like he wants to be under the table, is oh! Poor boy, let him go! But when he looks up with only his smoldering eyes, a

tentative squint, I think rotten kid. 

      Which of course, I feel bad for thinking, because he reminds me of the incorrigible third-grader, who was so disruptive in my after-school writing club, one of the few children I just didn't like.  He was so unlikeable, so ugly in his need to be disruptive. As a last resort I went to the principal and told her I just couldn't deal with the little devil. His writing was intentionally shocking, violent, meant to gross us out. He upset one girl, made her cry.

          When I met his mother my heart melted. Barely an adult herself, she had those big, hollow, scared eyes of someone who has lived in fear her whole life. I wanted to put my arms around her, tell her to sit down, I'd make her a cup of tea. I wanted to take her home, cook her a nice dinner, let her pet my dog.

          Her husband, the boy's father, terrorized the whole family. In and out of jail, he was currently home, on probation, trying to behave. I told the mother the boy could stay in my class. Maybe just talking to his mother would make him realize someone was paying attention to him. For wasn't it attention he wanted?

          Today in the courtroom I learn the definition of Criminal Mischief. It's similar to vandalism but the damages are less than $500.00. The second offense, for which the boy is charged, is Evading Arrest.  The defense attorney asks us, "Is it okay to run from the law?"

          Like good children we shake our heads, no, but how many of us are thinking hell yes - if the cops are chasing you with their pepper spray and stun guns and real guns? How many times have we seen videos of cops beating protesters?  How many incidents of police brutality have we read about? How many cops cover up for each other?

          My husband says I wasn't picked for jury duty because I asked too many questions, I was too talkative. "They don't want people who think," he says, "you're just supposed to sit there and listen."

          "But the attorneys said they wanted us to ask questions!" I say in my defense. 

          The trial is set for tomorrow morning. I could go and sit in the courtroom and find out what that skinny white kid did to get arrested.  I could watch the twenty-eight-year-old prosecutor call witnesses and explain to us the letter of the law. I could hear the sixty-something defense attorney plant doubt in our minds.

          It's probably good I didn't get selected. I don’t think I could consider the facts, and only the facts. Life is more complicated than that.