The cold

What so silent creeps with evil intent, without a whisper of its coming?
Tickles the throat and allows not the clearing a normal disturbance makes;
Cast not the eye on this villain, and perhaps destination will choose another
A skirmish in the sinus, the sleeping familiar warning of Nyquil nights to come.

Morning’s arrival has company: a Kleenex, a Kleenex, my dignity for a Kleenex!

What cold deed now seeks revenge on my throat and avoids all abating?

A hot ember residing with comfort sits, as if a servant
To inspect roughly anything that might attempt to pass.
A symphony in the making; coughing with notes of varying sounds from basso to falsetto,
Followed by a gentle wheeze that rests with insistent pride on every breath.

Like a one-hit oldie, there is no expectation of arrival,
You know the notes, the melody, and the harmony—and there it is:
A cold, your cold.

One would think that given the many rehearsals,
You could play through the misadventures:
Be d’Artagnan and duel all symptoms to rest.
Not.

I am six when I’m sick:
Ginger ale, Vaporub, and Campbell’s chicken soup (the musketeers)
Must follow until that morning when the corner arrives,
When my voice no longer sounds like it’s exiting through one nostril,
When blowing my nose doesn’t feel like it might blow an eye into my soup.

I used to read the thermometer without glasses;
A non sequitur, yes, but I have allowance.
I am seriously feeling sorry for my three-days-ago self.

Okay, so it wasn’t Iwo Jima, but it was a form of hand-to-hand combat with myself;
Fight, but do not slay; you might need those lungs later …

Images

128 and the Redwood Hallway

Just retired ...swarms...(shake weight arms)

                            River Creek range - 2010

Breaking news...

We are becoming as polarized as Congress. We see less and less of the person who makes a different choice. We judge people more on the shirt they’re not wearing. The civil civil war is becoming more and more uncivil. I can blame things, people—but mostly it’s the television. It used to inform me—now it only incites me. Fills my veins with “breaking news”—it’s a dog whistle, it’s heroin, it’s processed food. I’m fooled to think if I don’t pay attention, the Morlocks will surely take over. Perhaps it’s time to watch my own shoes and make my own direction. I don’t want to pick a line to stand in or on. I just want to agree with myself more. How did we ever come to think that it’s better to compare with people we already agree with?

Grrrrrrr

My age is revealing a growing disdain for the following competitions: checkstands, gas pumps, 30-second ads, hostesses, traffic of all kinds, heat or cold (in any continuous form), appointments, my handwriting, and arguments that last more than 5 seconds.

I’d like to think this disdain reflects preference, not impatience, though lately I have a suspicion that my fancy French coffeemaker has been playing tortoise to my hare on purpose, in an effort to soften my glare while it brews.

Moonset

Just a bit too close!

                          Near as I can figure it was about 2 miles from the neighborhood

How did we get here?

After she called them "deplorables," I thought, this race is going to be closer than people think. Her apology was like a judge telling the jury, "The jury will disregard that statement." Who calls people “deplorables” unless they're thinking it? It was spontaneous; it was the way she really felt.

How did we get here? How did this happen?

I’m not sure a Kansas farmer gives a damn about transgender bathrooms, gerrymandering, tell-all books, gays in the military. Their ideologies, I believe, are much more symbolic: flag, country, wages, and removing their hats (no matter the word or words) as they salute the symbol. These are the other half of Americans we urban folk got too sophisticated to notice—the silent majority, the Tea Party, and those who are now so desperate they're willing to hear only certain words coming from their guy who doesn't sound like a bridge-seller and seems to be talking right to them. It matters not a bit that the next guy or gal will be a Democrat or a Republican—it's the same old song, and those “deplorables” will be disenfranchised all over again.

No one person can bring to the table a unifying thesaurus. We are victims of supervised neglect; both sides are deaf and neither can read the other’s sign language. A serious chink in the republic’s armor: politicos and their ideologies (and their passion for same) caused this. Greed on both sides kicked the can down the road, not realizing or caring that a population was inside it. They’re unable to change.

Reminds me of the old nylon stockings: once you had a run …

The Oaks

The oaks in the meadow are much too quiet, too still—suspiciously so. I imagine when I turn my back they swing dance, break dance, waltz? I try to catch them; I cheat with my peripheral advantage, but they’re wise to me and refuse catching. Those oaks in the meadow—much too quiet, too still.

I remain suspicious. 

Coyote in the shade

Waking this side of Nippinawasse

Waking this side of Nippinawasse, I realize I had dreamed about being trapped in ‘70s, wearing puka shells, boots, and pants so tight people could tell my blood type. I think that’s why I don’t recall much about the ‘80s—the contrast, the relief was so complete and subtle I refer to it as the “beige decade.” People had to take lessons on how to button up their shirts and deny those chain necklaces were ever theirs. It made me cautious and led me to think about trends and fads a bit more. I tried looking in advance back at myself—it doesn’t work; it’s not supposed to. Still, I worry that I’m becoming an involuntary player in something I don’t understand and that, at the end, someone will tap me on the shoulder and tell me it’s all been one long pyramid scheme.

Waking this side of Nippinawasse.

The backyard ...

Looking out ...

Summer of 62

The day I came home from camp, my mother picked me up in her new Austin Healey Sprite. It was the summer of 1962, I was thirteen, and I couldn’t wait to brag about losing my virginity at camp. If I  recall It came out more like a near confession than an expression of bravado.


She switched gears and looked at my face for proof (she could see a lie on my face in the dark). She nodded once hard—it appeared the nod was to herself—and said, “Great, that’s not a conversation I was looking forward to” (another gear).


“Okay, Romeo, listen up: Use your elbows and share the wet spot, and you’ll do all right.”


My turn to nod, and then I tested: “This means I can smoke now, right?” Another gear in silence, which meant “no.”



The only other advice I remember my mom giving me was not to trust anyone who doesn’t like bacon.

Summer's Sin

The echo in the canyon

If you look back and imagine an idyllic time, pause. Perhaps we all overlooked, or pretended there wasn't a chink in the armor until it showed up. Going back to that idyllic place without recognizing how and why we are where we are just creates another generation of ostriches. Hiding behind or defending your political initial only exacerbates the echo in the canyon.

Fire sunset

A place for fog ...

The edge of collected images seems to dull in the passage of time and daily distractions. It is in the silence where they beg to appear from back in the line. Tilted heads leaning to be seen to the side of the even administrations that only have one purpose and that are born to tunnel vision, they stand perfectly straight—perhaps necessarily, though they are, without any personality, solid colors. Clear. Obvious. Styrofoam.

Notes sing and the fingers back there in the line snap, heads nod, hips move, and words rise like a melodic phoenix to remind something in me that rhythm is the jukebox of the heart, so I sing to remind those tilted heads they’re not just in line, they offer a place for fog where the world softens in meaningful nostalgia, and they remind my feet they’re not just for shoes, for walking.

CONDIMENTS IN MISUSE (just another rant)

Someone will say it’s the way your parents initiated their 

use. Others will point to 23 & Me and insist that it lies 

completely in your genes, because some people eat cilantro 

and taste soap and others don’t. One rogue group believes 

it’s a matter of aesthetics: the color of the condiment trumps 

all.

Watching someone put ketchup on a hot dog, for instance, 

causes me to wince and imagine the unimaginable: what the 

mix of ketchup and dog might taste like. There are states 

that I’m told have laws about ketchup use: shall only be used 

on fries. Which, of course, makes perfect sense. Would or 

could you say that someone who misuses a condiment has 

no taste no taste? And there are those who commit even 

more serious breaches, like putting mayonnaise on a 

dog. This is so far over the line I’d forgive anyone who water-

boarded such transgressors.

There is no constitutional right or protection against 

condiment misuse. While I know the government has its 

priorities (like creating a Space Force or dealing with anyone 

who is a shade darker than the President), I think a new 

branch of federal agents called The Condiment Cops should 

be seriously considered. Assigned to all stadiums and public 

venues, these CC’s could mete out instant justice when they 

identify misuse, an approach I think everyone would relish.

Mixed use, of course, would have to be contested in the courts …

Bronx Cowboy

My genes were trained from an embryo to go Cowboy.  Now of course it all seems so incongruous; 'Bronx Cowboys"- but there it was, in Black and Fuzzy white; Hop-a-long, Poncho and Cisco, Roy Rodgers, the Lone Ranger (who was hardly "lone" Tonto always had his back) And lets not forget the John Wayne flicks...

And then a Deputy Sheriff ... no boots.

Gal gone?

They were never automatic, her visits. Sometimes often, sometimes infrequent, but always upon appearance came a respected welcome; four-legged royalty who seemed to set aside the “wild” part and dare proximity for a snack. Her swaying and circling, and the occasional paw scratch on the ground showing a bit of anxiety and impatience, seemed more like an attempt at communication. That one could whistle and hold up an arm and then find her racing from some unseen tall grass was, for me, anyway (and I suspect for others as well), a sign that our friendship was still present and quite active. We were the “pets” grazing past her territory and paying the toll with a variety of “tributes.”

It has been a month since “the gal” has visited, responded, or been sighted. Hopefully she is nursing a new brood and is much too busy to collect our infatuated faces and smiles. But she has been longer absent than any other span, and she hasn’t left a note, nor any indication of what is happening with her.

A group of golfers awaits with hopeful curiosity that she’ll show again, take some time to abate the concern, and confirm that it wasn’t something we said …

The epiphany

I had come home from a hard day of golf to find a man at the side of my house. I recognized the PG&E uniform and inquired what he was doing. “I’m turning off your power; you haven’t paid your bill.” I had up until then been deft at defying circumstance and certain realities. I took a step closer and insisted he stop. I told him I had two small daughters who would be coming home from school soon. He paused, clearly considering my dilemma, and then looked at the golf bag still slung over my shoulder, my golf shoes connected with laces over the irons. He examined my face and the cigarette dangling from the side of my mouth and shook his head. “Maybe it’s time you change your priorities.”

Change. No greater resistance could have had residence in this man’s body than the resistance to “change” or even to alter. I checked the lights for some miracle, still in disbelief—no miracle. No cooking— electric stove. I recall making up a story about the electricity and how I would fix the problem, that homework and dinner would be by candle light. I didn’t have to make it exciting—children, I would discover, find such challenges fun, new, exciting. I announced that we would be picnicking on the dining room floor, on a blanket with candles, the fare to be peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Two small smiles grew into large ones and my oldest fell right into step, setting the blanket with paper plates, napkins, cups for juice. I lit candles in the bathroom, the hall, my room, and four more, carefully placed on the dark brown shag rug surrounding the blanket.  Looking back, I realize, among too many other recognitions, how children automatically make the best of awkward or fresh circumstances; later, as adults, we preface our responses with complaint, blame, and a measure of self-pity, before acting on the inevitable child in us.

Watching those two bright and crumbed faces, smiles flickering in the candle light, my shame was so complete I couldn’t talk, lest I fall into tears of apologies that would need an explanation I knew I would be instantly forgiven for—forgiveness being another quality children are specially known for. “Dinner” done, “dishes” thrown away, two small nightgowns made their way down to their bedroom, giggling, hands attached. Kisses delivered and “Goodnight, sweet dreams, I love you’s” said, I was left on the blanket, but it might as well have been another planet, certainly another world. Somewhere inside, rarely visited, began an emotion that brought a racking and sobbing in my body, attached to a pall of shame and guilt I had never known I owned the deed to. It went on for what seemed like hours, and when I thought I was done, it insisted, apparently knowing how resistant I was to reality and discomfort. When finally I could walk, hours later, I made it to my bed where two small bodies inevitably made their way during the night, not always together, but somehow by morning attached to Dad. Sweaty heads and soapy smells launched every morning. This morning I would hold them like never before, appreciating cotton flannel-covered arms and bodies, tiny hoarse voices in protest over waking.

That next morning I sold my golf clubs, my stereo, my coin collection, and anything else of value, and I got in line, a line where I was no longer first—proud and happy to be third, and only just threatening to be a real parent.

Uh-oh...

What if we told Michael Rennie, an alien is an alien. We don't care how far you've come, you can't be here!"  And no one knew how to say, "Gort, klaatu barada nitko"?

Sometimes you're just Rapunzel with a crew cut..

Quail with Engima