Thank you
A conversation
The most important invention in your lifetime is…
I’m not just talking about talking for the sake of listening to your mouth move. Having a conversation about anything… stuff.
Here is what I’m trying to illustrate. In an interview Elon Musk said, “his mind is a storm”. A multitude of doctors have come out on their own pod casts to talk about why he would say that.
Doyle writes about Sherlock Holmes, “My mind, rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation.”
How do you fit into the conversation about the mind? My mind is all over the place. For example, I just read a lovely poem and my mind goes to ‘ticket to ride’.
We were watching a piece of local news one day about where the police dug up someone’s entire driveway looking for a body, I think. I made the comment, there is a machine they could have used to drag over the driveway. Archeologists use it. To which I received, ‘You just made that up, science fiction nonsense’. But I couldn’t remember the name of the device. Lack of focus? Lack of maturity?
But we can have these conversations now with not as much stigma as in the past. Elon Musk can talk about his mind being a storm. Doyle saying that Holmes rebels against stagnation. And I can talk about how my mind is all over the place. Pulling even more attention to the fact that even though we are human, we are all different.
Winter Season
Black out
Oscar’s mind was filled with the soft hum of something running. He felt calm and secure. This space was cool. Restful. The immediate area around him was soft. Wiggling is toes alerted him that he didn’t have any socks on. His last memory of himself was that he was fully dressed. After rubbing his legs together, he felt skin on skin. Where were his pants? There was material laying on his upper thigh, shorts of some kind? He didn’t own any shorts. He had a shirt on. His hands were folded under his head. When he opened his eyes, the space was dark. Where was he?
“Would you like something to drink?” That was Esther.
“Coffee would be nice?” That was Chet. “Esther,” his voice cracked. “Am I going to loose my best friend?”
“I sure pray not. We are just getting started.”
“I went back to school and the principal let me watch the security footage from Oscar’s room. No one was around him. He just collapsed.”
They must have moved to the living room. He couldn’t hear any more of their conversation. This cool inviting space pulled him back to sleep.
This time Oscar knew what woke him, it was the uncomfortable pressure of a full bladder. The act of swinging is feet over the edge of the bed didn’t hurt but the pain from his head knocked him to the floor.
Esther slid her arms around his waist. “Going somewhere?” She asked playfully.
“To the bathroom, I had hoped. My head really hurts.”
“You hit your head when you passed out. EMS said you don’t have a concussion. Are you able to talk about what happened?”
“Mom called this morning and was continuing her delightful conversation about how it is my duty as a Christian to marry Doris. Bluh, bluh, bluh.”
“But it had a negative effect.” She said softly.
“I thought I was doing fine. I told her that wasn’t my job, Christian or not. In typical fashion, she hung up on me. I guess as the day drug on; the conversation just laid on my mind, picking the wrong time to reappear.”
“I’m sorry.” She guided him to the bathroom door, then back to bed. “I am glad you found your voice.”
He said weakly, “some voice.”
Just hanging out
Describe your most ideal day from beginning to end.
Sitting on the couch with my dog writing or hanging out with my bestie.
Chico and me
Drive or die
How do significant life events or the passage of time influence your perspective on life?
Sometimes folks don’t believe, when I share the story about learning to drive. By the time I came along, my dad was retired. We did odd jobs. And I do mean odd. One job my dad did was trimming out under growth. Someone from the forest service would go in and mark trees they wanted cut and we would cut them. This one job site was back in a holler; I’m sure daylight never made it to.
It was a log road. A simple dirt road carved out by a bulldozer just wide enough for, well a bulldozer. On one side was a hill that any Billy goat would appreciate. The other side was the embankment of death. A ravine, with to my teenage mine, no bottom.
I can’t fully remember why dad needed me to drive. Maybe he got too hot and didn’t feel good? I can’t remember where mom was.
It was all up to me to get us out of No Sunshine Holler.
Drive or die.
If you read some of my work, you read a post that I was afraid of failure. I am. My best friend and I have tried exploring where this came from. Does ‘having to do something’ out weight the fear? Or you realize that the fear is there do it anyway?
*Response to:
Learning to Drive
*Bois d’ arc aka Lions Mane, A poetic conversation, 2024.
Winter Season
God told me so
Oscar’s weekends were like gold. He needed them in order to decompress and regroup for the week ahead. He had just gotten up on Saturday morning, Esther and he had plans. There came that all too familiar pounding at his door. There stood his mother and his brother. “What do I owe this pleasure?” He said sarcastically as he let them in.
“Can’t a mother check on her son?” Pam sat in one chair and Otis plopped in the other.
“Did I not ask you that if you sat in one of my chairs, act like you have some manners?” He scolded his brother.
“Is she here?” Pam asked.
“As if it were any of your business;” Oscar growled. “But she is at home.” He pointed out the door toward her house.
“Well, I see that Brother Evan’s talk with you did no good. Satan really has a hold on you.”
Oscar sat on the couch, “all that man succeeded in doing was cause me to question my choice of churches.”
“Dancin’ is a sin.” Pam scolded.
“No it isn’t. There are a multitude of examples of dancing in the Bible; both pro and con. It is how you do the dancin’ that matters.”
“I think this woman is pulling you away from your true callin’.”
“Let me make this crystal clear. I am not marrying Doris. I am not having children. God has never placed it on my heart to have children. I DON’T WANT THEM.” He emphasized without shouting.
His mother’s face turned fifty shades of red. She was livid. “How can you say that? Babies are God’s precious gifts to us.”
“And you might be right. But if I don’t want to receive God’s special gift for me and end up screwing up another human life; what have I done to glorify God?”
“Your dad wouldn’t approve.”
“Don’t bring dad into this.”
“We had the two of you.”
Otis grinned from ear to ear.
“And I’m glad you did mom. For the most part, I like my life. But I’m not going to bring another human being into this world to screw up their life.” His stomach seized. He wouldn’t show the pain he felt on his face. The last thing he wanted them to know was that their plan to break him was working.
“You would make a great dad.”
“Yeah boy.” He scoffed.
“This tinnitus is God’s punishment.” She proudly puffed up at her comment.
Oscar felt like she hit him in the chest with a baseball bat. What kind of messed up b.s. was this? The door bell rang, he opened the door to Chaz. What the ..? This was a different kind of shock. Chaz’s cruiser was parked in Esther’s drive. “I’m sorry to bother you. This is kinda embarrassin’. Could I use your bathroom? I knocked at Esther’s but she didn’t answer.”
The cop that wanted to whoop him was now wanting to use his bathroom?
Oscar remembered his manners, “sure.” He walked Chaz out of sight to show him the door. When he stepped back into the living room his mother started, “have you had sex with her?”
“That is none of your business?”
“Everyone in town is talkin’ about what a whore she is. That’s why she had to move from the big city. She’s a filthy whore.”
Oscar was getting more and more upset.
“Oscar, thanks man.” Chaz walked back into the living room. “I drank one too many cups of coffee this morning.”
“You’re welcome.”
Chaz locked eyes with Oscar for a brief moment. “How’s our girl?” He plopped his hand on Oscar’s shoulder. The sound of someone thumping a watermelon vibrated through his ears. Chaz gave his shoulder a slight squeeze.
Now here is a man that could break bones. Oscar thought. What was Chaz up too? He finally answered, “she’s good.”
Pam scoffed.
Oat grabbed his crotch, snorting.
Oscar opened the door for Chaz. Once Chaz was clear the door, Oscar looked at his family, “get out.”
His mother didn’t move, “God told me you are to marry Doris!” She screamed. “You are to help her get her children back! You are to get her a job at that school you work at!”
“So none of this is about me and Esther? It’s about you. You provin’ to Doris that you can bend the world to your will. Be Lady Bountiful.”
“GOD TOLD ME SO!” She screamed.
“Did God also tell you that a convicted felon can’t work at a public school?”
“Lies all lies! Doris was set up by the dirty cops in this town.” She gestured at the door. Supposedly at Chaz.
Oscar was still holding the door open, “get out.”
Winter Season
Your Disability
Esther and Oscar were cuddled up on the couch. She was lying in her favorite spot. Listening to the beating of his heart. Occasionally, she would open her eyes only to see the rain still pouring down. The brick wall of his house was a rainy blur.
“How do you think that window would look with a window seat?”
“What made you think of that?” He asked.
“I’ve always wanted one. I think they are romantic. But I wonder if it would eat up too much of the living room?”
“It would need to be big enough for both of us.” He suggested playfully.
She snuggled into him a little deeper.
He shuffled slightly under her. She could feel his chest move, as if he was about to speak. But he didn’t. He did it again. She wasn’t going to push him. Finally, after several minutes, “I got fitted for a hearing aid today.” He stopped. Was there more?
So she asked, “is it a little or a lot?”
“There is a little hearing loss in my right ear. My left one is the bad one. I have tinnitus. It has been spiking at night. Thought I might need to do something about it.”
“Is it part of your childhood?”
“The ENT didn’t think so. She thought it was from an untreated sinus infection. The damage, in her opinion, doesn’t warrant an MRI. So who really knows.”
“I’m sorry. If I may ask, how is a hearing aid going to help tinnitus?”
“Sound therapy.”
“Okay.”
He held her a little tighter. “Ess, it crushed me when she started talkin’ about ‘your disability’. Ways to cope with ‘your disability’. If she said it once; she said it 15 times, ‘your disability’.”
“Have you talked to your mom about it?”
She felt him let out a long sigh, “I don’t think there’s much point.”
Not today
Something on your “to-do list” that never gets done.
Not today
~
You get me from point A to B.
Nothing about you is free.
~
We have a lot of good times together.
In all kinds of weather.
~
The major things get done.
Let someone else have that fun.
~
It needs to be completed. But I keep saying tomorrow.
You need a good interior detail. I feel the sorrow.
~
Maybe this spring.
Maybe this summer? Rags and wax I’ll bring.
~
The trash does get emptied from time to time.
On the plus side, you’re not growing slime.
Winter Season
Pot roast and Facebook
The house smelt divine. He walked straight from the door to the kitchen sniffing of the air. She slid her arms around his waist and laid her head on his back. “I thought you were going to spank me for not eating lunch?” He said playfully.
“Oh, I gave it serious consideration. But I felt like you wouldn’t be able to handle it, not have eaten and all.”
His stomach gave a loud growl. “So what are you going to do for Lent?”
She let him go and pulled the pot roast and cornbread from the oven. “I’m going to do a gratitude journal. I have a lot to be thankful for but I don’t give God near enough credit.”
“What have you done in the past?” He sliced the roast while she cut the cornbread.
“I’ve tried giving up caffeine. I failed miserably on that one. I’ve given up chocolate, candy. I read the Bible through one year and I started during Lent.”
As they sat down to eat, they continued to talk. “There is so little that I can eat, giving up something associated with food seems counterproductive.”
“One year I gave up cussing.”
He gave a sly grin. “You cuss?”
“Oh yeah, a sailor taught me how.”
“This is really good.” He moaned taking a bite of the roast.
She smiled, “thanks.” He seemed lost in another world to her as he ate his dinner. “Honey, are you okay?”
“Two girls got arrested today. One got on Facebook and called the other girl all kinds of horrible things. So the second girl confronted her about it. She had printed off ten pages of things the girl had said about her. The girl that did the name calling pushed the other girl into the lockers and it was on. There was blood and hair everywhere. I even stepped on a tooth.”
“Wow!”
“I hate Facebook. I don’t understand what people get out of it.” She smiled. “What?” He questioned.
“One of my jobs was trolling Facebook. You would be amazed at what people said thinking that it is private.”
“You don’t have a Facebook account do you?”
“I did a long time ago. But six out of ten times that I had to go to court, it was Facebook related. Suzie reconnected with her old boyfriend from high school and fell madly in love. She left her husband and three children high and dry because she couldn’t live without Mark. Jim had an affair on his wife and she found out about it from his Facebook page. He hasn’t been happy in a long time so he went looking for that happiness.” She rolled her eyes. “Indeed. One of the worst domestic violence cases I ever worked was over Facebook.”
“How so?”
“This man found himself an internet woman on Facebook. When his wife found that he was not only married to her but was married to three other women in three states, she just about killed him. She made Loraine Bobbit look tame by comparison.”
Oscar raised an eyebrow.
Poetry & More 