Bee

Behold! The bee.
A swollen bullet of honey
and venom
on an erratic path
to Eden.

God’s woofer
wrapped in sunlight
and shadow.
Blaring the earth’s hum
like a tiny speaker
on Nature’s stereo.

Do you know me, bee?
I want to squeeze
your velvety abdomen
and spill through
that pencil point barb
all the sweetness and bitter
of life
in inky DNA strands
across the page.

To gather up the world’s essence
in powdery pollen bits
and dance their glorious purpose
with certainty
and joyful abandon.

Do you know me, bee?
I want to swallow you down.
Let your grace
fill me up; feel your stinger
pierce me through.
Until tiny pinpoints
of light
shoot out through my skin.
The lost sister of the Pleiades -
found.

Winter Prayer

Today I call upon the spirit of bear.
Let me hibernate in my dreams!
Enough running ‘round in circles,
Fat on the calories of honey, honey, honey.

Give me the spirit-food of introspection,
The sustenance of stillness.
Hurl me into that inky space
Between the borealis and
The lobes of my chattering brain.
Cradle me into the long winter’s nap.

Some senseless void.

A quiet mind.
Where I can hear my own heart.

Let me be like the winter trees:
Stripped bare of garish distractions,
The roar of fluttering.
Fall away and leave me as One
While the sap runs slow and deep, deep, deep.

Give me the tenacity of roots,
Silently creeping into the earth,
nourished by the darkness and
the dirt of origins.

Theory of Breaking Glass

“Well, what do you want?” My mother spread her arms out, surveying the general disarray of the room. We were standing in the middle of my grandparent’s house in Seaside Park and together we were going to sort through 90 years worth of stuff.

I tried to think of just one thing that would embody the feeling and the memories of a childhood spent in this tiny cottage. How do you capture the taste of corn-on-the-cob summers with sliced Jersey tomatoes? The endless games of horseshoes in the sandy weed lot we called the backyard? Naps with your cousins all piled up like puppies on that old porch glider? The dim cool damp of the garage jumble of fishing tackle and sandy beach chairs?

My earliest memories of our planet grew from this place, woven into the cells of my sensory organs. Sometimes when the tide is just right and the wind blows a certain way, I smell the ocean of my infancy and I breathe more deeply.

“I’d really love the giant wall mirror,” I said, hesitant. Hopeful.

“That’s staying with the house. Pick something else. Besides, you’re the fifth kid asking for it, so forget it.”

I tried desperately to think of something that would fill me up with this place, wasn’t already spoken for and that nobody else would want. “How about the juice glasses?” They weren’t anything special, but I loved them. I knew I couldn’t buy another set like them anywhere. They were ancient; probably as old as the house. And I knew they had been used over decades, intimately, daily, through all the joys and the tears, the nor’easters and the quiet dawns alike, by people I loved.

“What in the world would you possibly want those for?” She was dumbfounded and I was pissed. All day she tried to foist other more valuable, less desirable items on me, but I remained steadfast. In the end, she grudgingly let me have them and it felt like a triumph of sorts.

Over the course of the next six months, I broke all but one.

With the first shattering, I wept piteously. By the fifth one, I was resigned. Grandpa was trying to tell me something, but I was damned if I knew what. At first, I thought he just didn’t want me to have his juice glasses. After awhile I made a joke out of it. With each lost glass, I’d shout out, “Grandpa’s here!” I guessed it beat standing there crying about it. Eventually it became a sort of ritual at our house. Any time something broke, one of us would call out, conjuring the dead.

Years later, the day after my mother died, my family gathered at the kitchen table to sort out the arrangements for the mass and burial. In the course of the arm waving, somewhat heated discussion, several wine glasses were upended and fell to the floor. Without thinking, I shouted out, “Mom’s here!” There was stunned silence as five faces turned to me with raised eyebrows. I tried to explain, but they all seemed to think I was making a weird and tasteless joke.

Quietly, as I cleaned up the broken glass, I noticed something: no one was shouting anymore. The room had a stillness. A kind of peace.

Slowly, I began to pay attention. I started to think maybe the message from Grandpa - and now my mother- was something else. Something important.

I noticed that any time something in the house broke – a plate knocked against the granite countertop, a cracked bowl in the dishwasher, a slippery vase – it was usually preceded by some sort of chaos.

An argument. Or a hurried good-bye. The kids squabbling.

And afterward, some other energy. A re-focus. A deep breath. A slower pace. A reconciliation.

That was it! I shared my theory with my husband and my children. Do you think they want us to slow down? Take time for each other? Not get so crazy with our daily pressures? Yes! We all agreed. We all embraced the message. I even contemplated picking up a stack of dishes at the secondhand store. Just for that very purpose. Chaos in the house? Hey, just throw one of these!

The solution we finally settled on was a bell. A deeply resonating Tibetan prayer bell. It hangs over the doorway, to be rung by anyone who needs a different kind of energy. A renewed spirit. A sense of peace.

The other day, I gave it a tap as I walked into the room and my daughter looked up at me and smiled. “I think of grandma a lot too,” she said.

RV Adventure

The other day I saw a vintage luggage tag that summed me up perfectly.
It read: “I Love Not Camping.”

It brought to mind our first trip in an RV. A long weekend in Maine seemed like the perfect trial run.

In four short days, here is what I learned:

• If your teenager has seen the movie “RV”, they will expect you to pull up in a 60’ fully loaded RV, complete with television and hot tub. When you pull up in the 15’ version that looks and drives like a refrigerated truck and has 1-800-RENT-ME on the side, you may want to have a back-up plan for the kids. They will make good on their promise to keep you equally miserable for the duration of the trip and quite possibly into the next millennium at the mere mention of RV’s.

• When you arrive at the campground, have one person take charge of choosing the perfect campsite right away. This will avoid 18 trips around in a circle arguing over which site looks the best. It will also eliminate having to duck down below the window for the 3rd – 18th trips around as you pass by the other campers who are now openly pointing and guffawing.

• Some camps have areas designated for different kinds of camping: one area for RV’s and another for tents. Usually an RV is too big for a campsite designated for tents. Should that not deter you from using a tent site, make sure you really don’t plan on going anywhere else for the rest of the weekend. Once you squeeze into that spot, only a crowbar will get you out!

• If you fire up the generator at 6 am after a sleepless night with your head smashed against the metal wall and your feet in the air because you parked on a slant, be prepared for a multitude of dirty looks from the other campers as you greet the dawn. Particularly if yours is the lone RV surrounded by tents.

• If you decide to have a shower, remember the RV is on a slant before the water runs away from the drain and into the rest of the RV. This will eliminate spending the rest of the weekend with the shampoo in your hair.

• Take 15 minutes to lay in the deserted road with your heads together and count the stars. This is what you will later overhear your teenagers telling their friends about their miserable weekend.

• Do not joke that there is an axe murderer hiding just over there in the pitch blackness. The kids will jump up and run back to the RV, leaving you to grope through the dark and desolate woods alone.

• A husband who gets excited about having a bed-toilet-refrigerator-TV on wheels also loves opportunities to jump out from behind trees pretending to be an axe murderer.

• Do not bring a gun – your brain rattling screams of terror will deter even the hardiest of real axe murderers within a 10 mile radius.

• With experience comes wisdom – and snazzy luggage tags that remind us of exactly who we are.

Alaska Haiku

A caribou leaps!
The faces of Denali
Fill us with stillness.

Reflection

In the shallow cove
along the sedge,
a turtle crouches on the sandy bottom
peering up.

Still and fearless,
she can wait for a
very
long
time,

holding her breath
against the promise
of the sun.


In the shallow cove
along the sedge,
I crouch within the hard shell
of my canoe,
peering down

between the flickering shards
of the sun.


Waiting
for the dark and silent thing
to move along,

I fear one of us will drown.

When Less Becomes Too Much: Confessions of a Maxxaholic

I feel myself starting to twitch. And hum. A little sing-song nothing to try to distract myself, but it isn’t working. My chest feels tight and I can’t con…cen…trate. I sidle over to the front door, casually picking up my pocketbook and slipping into my shoes on the way. Almost there. Emma glances up from the book she’s been buried in all morning.

Suddenly she is alert and demands, “Where are you going?”

“Out,” I reply. “I’ll just be a few.”

“Don’t go, Mom.”

“It’s fine, Honey. I just need to get…some…stuff…”

“WE’RE GOING TO HAVE TO DO AN INTER…”

The door slams behind me and I dash to the car. Already I am breathing a little easier and the twitch becomes a tingle of anticipation.

When I arrive, I make sure to park a little way away and walk. If anyone recognizes my car, maybe they will think I’m in Staples. At the entrance, the doors swoosh open before me like the welcoming arms of a long lost lover. I step in and I am home.

The euphoria sets in while I survey my domain and carefully select my cart. Not the one with the squeaky wheel. Ditto the sticky handle or the one with the broken seat – that one is trouble with a capital T !

I plan the most gratifying route that will leave no aisle unexplored. Hmm, start at handbags and work my way over to kitchen gadgets? Or jump right to active wear and see where my urges take me? While I contemplate this, Jocelyn from Returns gives me a friendly wave. I feel myself stiffen and aim my cart directly to bedding in the back.

An hour passes… maybe two. Three? Who can say as I meander my way around the store, exploring the jumbled potpourri of the clearance aisle for secret special bargains and baubles of joy. I zig. I zag. Floating my way from aisle to aisle, the cart gathers throw pillows, some tongs, the dreamiest pair of red leather Etienne Aigner’s marked down to $99, gourmet jelly, a giant orange ceramic Buddha head, and last year’s Life Is Good t-shirts for the whole family.

In the wall art section I come across a beautiful print and I instantly imagine it hanging in that perfect place, just the right wall in a cozy room.

I suddenly realize that the perfect place I am imagining to hang this picture isn’t in my house. I try to think where I was thinking of - maybe someone else’s house I’ve been in…

No. It’s just an imaginary house. A pretend-glossy-magazine-image of a room. I have invented the perfect setting for this print. I am frozen, the print hovering over the cart. Do I buy it? Where can I put it? I mentally explore my own house, going from room to room and realize with dismay I was going to buy a print that would in no way fit with the décor in my actual home.

Carefully I place the print back on the shelf, but I am shaken a little by this. What was I thinking? I look into my brimming cart for comfort, some positive reinforcement. My eyes go wide with terror when the realization hits me that I don’t actually need ANY of the crap in my cart. I stumble backward a little bit, reeling and even then, I’m thinking: just grab the shoes and go; you’ll never find shoes like that again at that price. Besides, you can always return them tomorrow if you change your mind!

But it is too late. The veil has been lifted. I have officially crossed the line from Maxx-inista to Maxx-aholic.

Somehow, I make it out of there and back to my car, fumbling the key into the ignition, trying to get away before I convince myself I’m overreacting. How did this happen? I know I love a bargain, but when did I graduate from being a simple jacket junky to a card-carrying (literally – you get 10% back – who wouldn’t!) dress hoarder?

On the ride home, I quietly review my behavior over the last few months, trying to find where I went off track. Having a stake in the island economy, I am constantly touting the virtues of “buying local” and yet, here I was driving over the bridge every week as my first option instead of as a last resort. And what about my vow to avoid products 'Made in China'? That place is so filled with goods made in China, I’m surprised they don’t offer Moo Goo Gai Pan while you wait in the checkout corral! Somehow my minimalist tendencies had been seduced by the “Brand Names for Less” slogan and my innate desire to dig for treasure.

Deflated, dejected, I quietly join my family as they are finishing dinner.

“Where were you?” my husband asks.

“I… I was at… at the store,” I stutter, fumbling with the napkin in my lap. Emma gives me a knowing look, one eyebrow arched in disapproval.

“Well, I hope you don’t mind that we started without you,” he says. “Did you buy anything?”

“No. Nothing. I just needed to get out. Relax a little.” I take a bite of mashed potatoes. Silence and chewing. I am careful not to look at Emma.

“I did see this great pair of shoes, though…”

Warning Signs of Maxxaholism:

• You find yourself commenting to Fidel, the homosexual sales representative originally from Guatamala, that you’re surprised he’s not at his usual register.

• You own more then 3 black dresses, all with the tags still on them, just in case you might have the perfect function come up.

• You skip out on yoga class when you overhear the instructor saying she was at the Maxx yesterday and they had just gotten in a shipment of Prana.

• You splurge on a $40 designer straw hat at a local boutique and your neighbor shows up at the beach wearing the same exact hat, only she got hers for $7.99. You switch hats while she is swimming in the ocean.

• You drive 30 miles to a different branch so as to avoid the eye-rolling Jocelyn who is annoyed with you for returning the Jack Daniels infused mesquite briquettes she told you not to buy in the first place, even though she could’ve lost her job.