the edge of low tide

something—maybe something bad—happened. i'm not sure what. or when. but the inescapable fact is that it did occur.

i know the washing machine didn't break in the middle of the rinse cycle because i didn't have to haul out the heavy, soaked, sudsy clothes and dump them into the tub and then call sears to send their fix-it man. the kenmore is more than twenty years old and it wouldn't be worth fixing anyway.

i didn't back out of the garage and run over my bicycle. my bicycle is already broken.

i was vacuuming what i thought was just sand and dog fur and food debris on the floor of the car when the vacuum cleaner sucked in a disgusting gob of god-knows-what and it got stuck and the hose clogged and no matter what i did i couldn't remove it. but that's not what i'm talking about.

the endoscopic procedure i had last week was no fun and the nasty stuff they force you to drink made me violently ill, but the doctor's office called and said everything looked fine, the polyps were benign, no need to worry, see you in five years.

maybe my old dog died of cancer? and i wept and wept? and when i finally wiped my eyes and blew my nose i sprinkled her ashes near the places in the yard she loved best: the shade under the canopy of white pines in summer, the sun-filled flagged patio in spring, the edge of the driveway in winter (where she loved to wiggle on her back on a hill of snow left by the plow), the oak leaf covered front lawn in fall where she would happily sniff and sniff and sniff.

the vet syringed the large lump on her side and the tube filled with goop that looked like the cold mucus-like "20% fat" that oozes out of hamburger after you brown it for lasagne. the test came back negative, though. so no, that's not it either.

on the highway the cops were out in full force and i had to slow down. i swear i was not reading, putting on make-up, or texting while driving. there was no five car pile-up, no mangled metal, no mutilated flesh.

nobody drowned in the cove this winter, no one needed rescuing.

as i walked along the edge of low tide i concentrated hard and strained my eyes looking for signs.

i'm still searching, wondering what might have happened and if i should let anyone know.

seed

back when a black sky awakened with the first smudge of the first orange light and continued to brighten under a newly formed sun, in an era before many words were spoken, and then later when the sentences uttered were few and guttural, and then way beyond that when, at last, there was a babel of languages—none of which could possibly be comprehended today—it flew across the land.

it careened past fiefdoms and serfdoms and dukedoms, danced over terror and famine, knowledge and expansion, sprouting famous and infamous people—kings, queens, generals, empresses, tzars, dictators, poets, prophets, tyrants—and all the lesser folk no one has ever heard of or read about in a book.

on mountains, deserts, plains and jungles it settled and lived, grew strong and insistent, lifting and spreading itself at every opportunity, seeping like mist, rising like vapor in and around every gaping crack on earth.

it flowed river-like along currents of time—air and ocean currents, too—and, most recently, sailed on wooden ships, steamships, and liberty ships and cruised on jet planes. it arrived in this place, right here where i stand on the porch in the bright, warm sunshine eating an apple and pushing a stray piece of hair out of my eyes. tirelessly it traveled and then presto!—became the me of me.

after a long day

after a long day that i just don't want to talk about, my ghost comes home with me and we settle into our evening routine. she sits on the couch flipping through the new yorker and i make dinner. (my ghost is not that interested in food; i, on the other hand, am starving.)

when dinner is over i take a shower. my ghost refuses to go with me. oftentimes she is frightened and confused by contact with hot water, so i don't make a fuss and let her keep reading.

i finish blow-drying my hair and i notice she is still sitting on the couch, pretending to read. when she's distracted and unable to focus like this i can tell ghostie's a bit down. it's hard for her, you know, being a mere shadow of me, mostly unseen, unheard, unnoticed—to her mind, nonexistent. i try to cheer her up by telling her she's important to me; she's a part of me, for crying out loud.

at ten-thirty i yawn; it's time for bed. i turn down the thermostat (this pleases my ghost—she likes it cold, but i'm just trying to save money on my oil bill) and climb into bed. tonight i'm too tired to read. i scoot under the covers and pull the soft, puffy comforter up to my eyes and try to get warm. with the lights off, my ghost begins to relax; she drifts along the drafty rooms from window to chilly window, anticipating the darkness beyond them, imagining what her life would be like if she didn't have this constant need to slip past walls and through dimensions and across time, if she could only be content sticking closer to home.

by three-thirty the ghost of myself finally returns, exhausted from her travels through the sullen, wintry land, but calmed by her slide into those beckoning regions where weather doesn't exist. while i sleep she remains close—silent, hovering, watchful—and is absorbed into the black air. she arches her back and stretches her tight leg muscles, cat-like. she feels recharged, invigorated, ready for sleep.

ultimately, as we all do, ghost begins that fade into dreams—down, down, away. from the ether comes her clearly enunciated but barely audible whisper—good night. my tired ghost has one wish: that i would stop snoring long enough so she could get a little rest before the new day begins.


~ snoring is something i frequently think about because i hear a lot of it at night in various tones, patterns and frequencies emanating from the one husband and two dogs sleeping nearby.

but first papillotes

she had seemed to be recovering, sandwiched between hospital sheets and topped with wires and tubes through which drugs and nourishment licked into her veins. but now the doctors consult in hushed tones, standing above her bloated body and shaking their heads as if she wasn't there.

people arrive. she doesn't understand why so many of them are gathering in this place—some dabbing their eyes with kleenex, others kissing her cheek—until gradually it occurs to her that they are here on a solemn mission. she realizes how very old she is, and that these people—whoever they are—have come out of kindness. soon it will be time for them to cover her up, turn off the lights, draw the curtains, roll her away.

but first she is exploring the world with colleagues and friends, life in full swing. she has written many books about her travels—and about food, always the food. interspersed throughout the chapters discussing faraway people and places are her thoughts about the foreign dishes she discovers and tastes year after year in these different lands. her taste buds are extremely discriminating: boar's head, caviar, brain masala, moussaka, elk, pates, terrines, turbots, papillotes, paupiettes, and wine—oh the wine—she sings the praises of all the local gastronomia.

but first there are the crazy all-nighters—and a diet rich in high calorie, college food-service fare, chinese take-out and beer—culminating four years later in a much deserved top-of-the-class graduation from a fine university.

but first she impatiently slams the refrigerator door after grabbing her brown bag lunch containing a veggie and cheese sandwich on whole wheat, carrot sticks, and one cookie. she turns and reopens the fridge and peers inside, hopeful for something else to add to her bag. she finds there's nothing but leftover carrot soup, salad, and rice, none of which seems appealing. the school bus will be here in a minute. she leaves the leftovers behind, kisses her mother good-bye, and runs out the door.

but first she sees a vision, an array of lovely colors—bits and slices of red, orange, yellow and many, many shades of green. the colors are so beautiful that she can't peel her eyes away. she stares and stares at them for a long time. how about one of these? someone says and she is coaxed to pick up a finger-sized portion of asparagus, clementine, or strawberry off her highchair tray.

but first she is surrounded and wondrously enfolded by hilly mounds—the curves are so soft! one at a time she sucks them forcefully and at length to produce sweet, warm spurts in her mouth, which she quickly swallows.

but first it is time for her father to drive her mother to the hospital, three weeks early but she's ready, yes she's ready.

repose

you fondle each jewel before you pick up the pen containing archival ink. you sigh. you once were the reigning queen of movieland but today you sit on a velvet settee in front of an antique writing table and slowly flex your arm and fingers preparing to make another label. a maid could easily do this for you but you resist the idea.

the truth is you like writing the little tags. your handwriting is exquisite and you're glad that the schoolgirl years of laboriously copying the palmer method of penmanship—the flourishes, embellishments, ornamental details—have finally come in handy.

one diamond tiara. tiffany, 1973.

one diamond choker. bulgari, 1959.

one sapphire ring. cartier, 1967.

one strand of opera pearls. cartier, 1985.

and on and on, labels for all the pieces of jewelry you have acquired over the years.

with your insatiable thirst for jewels you are like a pirate sailing the seven seas in search of more booty. how many decades worth of treasure have you hidden away in chests and boxes, one or two pieces in each, each adorned with its own meticulously handwritten card?

you stop working on a 2010 label. a little smile sparkles on your lips. you are thinking about when you will be handed your last script—the script for life's final role—when you must lie still as dirt in peaceful repose in your casket and you are pleased when you imagine your collection of jewels and how they will also lie peacefully in theirs.

dusty pages

how do i compose this note to you?

i stare down into my scalding cup of tea. steam dampens my cheeks, my lashes. my vision becomes misty. i run the back of my hand over my eyes.

absent-mindedly i flip through the pages of a dusty, old book as if looking for.....what? a guide, a how-to manual, a roadmap, some definitive answer to the way the letters of the alphabet should be arranged to reach you?

the pages are yellow. the spine is cracked. my hands shake. a spot appears on the paper and is absorbed. i am lost. the words i was shaping shift and slink like phantasms back onto the night.

the winner

she showed them her signed ticket. now it's up to them.

after they contact her she'll know for sure, she'll believe. like when the carnival comes to town and the huckster manning the toss-the-ball-in-the-hoop on the midway cries out and beckons her to step right up young lady and take a chance (calling her young lady when it's a lie). you never know what you're gonna get, if the prize is even real—if you even win anything at all—until you've got it in your hand.

but before she can begin to realize how her life's gonna take a sharp turn, before the phone rings and things get crazy and all hell breaks loose, she's just minding her own business, slowly drinking a cup of tea and looking for some peace and quiet. it's been a long day at work and she's attempting to quell the first signs of a headache. her feet are propped up on the coffee table and she's leaning back on the couch watching dabs of late afternoon sun streaking through the windows and over the potted plants making pretty stippled patterns along the carpet and across the dog's sleeping head propped on the violin case.

then ring, ring, bingo! you're the confirmed winner and now the damn lawyers and accountants and smooth talkers and she's un-listing and unplugging, having to fend off the hacking into and the fishing for and the spam-o-rama and how did they get my cell phone number anyway? she has no idea about the way this works and the images in her mind are loud and disturbing.

in those first moments, when she's still her ordinary self with mountains of bills and laundry and cobwebs and weeds, and life is still quiet and small, the surprise and disbelief make her heart drum and her head zing forcing her to cross her legs in order to not pee her pants. she's a giddy little girl again. she has never won anything—not a thing! not even a stuffed animal!—in her life. the man is telling her the amount of her prize—millions and millions and millions—and she's too amazed to speak. she can only nod stupidly at the telephone, tears streaming down her face, thinking this can't be real, this can't be real, i'm dreaming.

at last she is able to speak again and the man on the other end is pleased he's not talking to an idiot but to a perfectly nice, intelligent lady who is asking all the right questions. she, who occupies that shady, tree-lined avenue called the middle age, that residence constructed of cement solid routines and extra calcium, at long last knows what she's got. the unknown has been revealed.

suddenly her life is all about pens and plans and secrets.

as she eyes the pen in her hand, rocketing words blast her with sign on the dotted line, ma'am. wanna go for a beer, a martini, wanna be a member of this club, a co-chair of that committee, what are you gonna do with all the money, honey, all those new best friends? that's it. sign there. right on that line there. 

she signs on the line of freedom.

in the end starts a foundation to help women and children in war-torn lands. then she buys a remote island where no one will find her, builds some bungalows, fills up her yacht with her buddies and her dogs and speeds down toward grand cayman and her secret hideaway. her plan is to become small again, tiny and hushed, like the grains of beach sand under her feet that disappear when the tide rolls in.

in a super size cup

you slouch in train stations, nap on city benches, nod in doorways with your unlaced sneakers, your salvation army jacket, your frayed yankees hat pulled so low your eyes remain hidden. your life floats in a super size cup waiting for hand-outs and sinks in an almost empty plastic bottle of rotgut hidden in a bag.

the molecules in your brain are vibrating faster now, as unseen as memory, as elusive as starshine. tonight, when you lay curled up on the sidewalk under a piece of cardboard and when i lay in bed on the seventh floor under high thread count cotton and goose down, i will squeeze my eyes shut. i will pray for your safety. i wonder, would you do the same for me were i down there and you here?

bedbug

fifteen stories above the street you scuttle along, invisible in the wallpaper's dry cracks or the underside of the plush donald trump mattress. when you find me in the darkness you gently ease yourself onto my flesh to probe and puncture and thirstily sip my blood. you are driven to become satiated, swollen red and satisfyingly engorged, full to bursting like some sort of minuscule balloon, hideous and pulsing red. we are not dissimilar, you and i—i feel the same way after urgently devouring a huge thanksgiving dinner. i googled you and got just the facts, ma'am; i know the truth. you and your kin have lived at one time or another in every hotel in nyc and i hear you now in this one as you back off my ear and tentatively seek my neck.

hydrangea

a lot of people who read and write stuff online in blogs or whatever prefer short, funny, cute tidbits, something to make you laugh, make you smile, start your day off on a positive note. you know, uplifting stuff. i do some of that, but those of you who have been here a while know how i can quickly can go off on a tangent. some days the keyboard has ideas other than the one i started out with, and it sends me clicking away in a very different direction.

~a story~

beside the house above the pond a large hydrangea grows, its branches full and weighted down with heavy blue blossoms. last summer i picked a few and made a bouquet for a friend, a friend who appreciated simple pleasures like a summer bouquet. you would think everyone would appreciate something as beautiful as flowers picked fresh from the garden, but that isn't true. no it isn't true at all.

some people see ugly, lots of ugly. it fills their lives, black and bitter. or they see nothing. to them a bouquet of flowers or a bowl of fruit or a basket of puppies are the same as a manhole cover or a cinderblock or an abandoned tenement. i don't know why. to these people things simply exist, they are meaningless objects and it doesn't matter if they're blue or green, living or inanimate things. that's the whole story, just nothingness, no feelings, nothing more to talk about, the end.

there was an old man who lived down the road from us when i was growing up. he used to sit on his covered front porch all day long when the weather wasn't too cold or snowy or rainy. he just sat there in a dirty, ugly gray stuffed chair, wearing a faded plaid shirt (on the hottest summer days he wore a dingy, yellowing wife beater) and brown pants, smoking a cigar, hardly ever moving. he had a newspaper on his lap. he never did or said much that we noticed, but my friends and i—we were all about nine or ten or eleven years old at the time—were scared to death of him. maybe that's what he wanted, a sick sense of power over us.

whenever we had to walk past his house, we walked on the other side of the road. he always stared at us—we were definitely spooked by him. the best time to head in that direction was dinnertime. that's when he went inside and stayed inside, except on hot summer evenings.

on one such summer evening i was walking by and he called out hey blondie what...... followed by unintelligible syllables. i knew he was talking to me because the friend i was with had brown hair. my mother always taught me to be polite, but in this instance nothing on earth was going to make me respond. another rule overrode the polite rule: do not talk to strangers. even though he lived at the end of our road he really was a stranger to everyone; he didn't want to be bothered with the neighbors—he made that clear—so we left him alone. he was a creepy loner. the adults never mentioned him. they probably knew all about his past, but they never talked about it in front of us. i don't even remember his name. (did i ever even know his name?)

another time i had no choice but to go the dreaded route. i was charged with delivering a bunch of flowers from my mother's garden to a friend of the family who had broken her arm. she lived two houses away from the old man. i was alone, and as i scurried along i saw him on his porch out of the corner of my eye. i moved faster. he muttered blondie and, loud enough for me to hear clearly, what's that stupid blue stuff in your hand? 


i looked straight ahead. kept walking. didn't answer. he freaked me out, that's for sure, but then i started to feel anger rising up inside me. the flowers weren't stupid, they were nice. i spun around and stomped back toward his house, ready to spew my boiling emotions at him.

they're flowers, you dummy!  i shouted across the street. i stuck my tongue out at him and spat on the ground. then i ran. i think those words made me feel a lot better, but they didn't change the fact that something about the old man on the porch was rotten.