Illiterations: Laughing At My Own Expense

The moment--the surprising, amazing, moment--his lips brushed mine, I was transported by his tenderness.   How long had it really been since I had experienced tenderness alongside physical closeness? I didn't know and I was suddenly drunk on sweetness; appreciation; gentleness; and feeling wanted. Tenderness crashed in on me.  And as I write, I realize that feels like an oxymoron because how could tenderness be crashing if it's tender? And yet so much like the void of a vacuum; of a black hole in space; the absence of something is static until the presence of that same thing comes thundering in and suddenly it is a roaring revelation of understanding and feeling. And at each step into the moments past that kiss, tenderness came first. Tenderness was all of it but not only it. It was everything I had almost forgotten I needed; it was nothing I had had in so many years.

You know how when you're growing up there's a point somewhere early in your life where you recognize that things have a value. You might not use that language. When you're little you don't think in terms of those words; your vocabulary isn't big enough to think in those words. But you recognize the concept of value and the concept of cost. When I was very little, my mom had this idea that she could teach my sister and me the value of things and the concept of saving money by having what she called, "her little store." That was a really excellent idea in concept. I think that it worked really well for my sister, who saw all the cute trinkets that my mom had in her tiny store (which was a wonderful metal powdered milk tin--a thing that I am sure if it were still in existence would be worth quite a bit all by itself).  When she looked at the things that my mother offered in exchange for the total of a saved allowance, my sister recognized that she could save ...

2003, with Okie; the hay barn at my ranch Not everybody knows this about me. Because--well it's kind of funny really, it seems like nearly everybody who knows me right now didn't know me 10 years ago.  But, 15 years ago I was a strong, mid '40s, kick ass, athlete. I was working out four days a week. I had six horses who I regularly rode. I managed everything about those horses; I arranged 40 tons of hay to be delivered one to two times per year for those horses and had a hay barn built for those 40 tons that I personally tarped, and protected from the weather, and, as I needed them dropped those 140 lb bales of hay off a stack 14 feet tall to feed my horses. Almost on a daily basis. Nowadays people don't see me doing that. The people who know me think--I think--that I am a little bit older; a little bit overweight. But you all didn't know me :-) Y'all don't know who I was and I'm still that person :-) And here's the thing. I mean a lot of people have...

There's a man that I know who would lay down his life to turn back the hands of time. He would pay any fortune that he had to go back to 1997 when he met me. But he is not my man. I let him go. We were not the right fit. I'm not entirely sure that another man has ever loved me more than that man. And even now in 2022, that man loves me more than the man I'm married to. That man cherishes me more and sees me more and defends me more than my own husband has ever done. I have been the best wife I knew how to be. In my world that doesn't mean being subservient; it doesn't mean being a sex slave; it doesn't mean being imprisoned in a home just doing housework. When I met my husband I was running my own business as a real estate agent. He was very supportive. He loved me and he promoted me to everybody he knew as the best real estate agent anybody could hire. You know in fact he wasn't wrong--of course that's irrelevant here, but still accurate. A photo Jeff s...

One of the labors of love I am most proud of, but which is mostly unknown to people who know me, is the incredible ranch and equestrian facility that was created upon a patch of ground that had once before been the home of "the largest llama herd in the U.S." The place of which I speak is none other than 11330 Mount Vernon Road, in Auburn, CA.  It had several other addresses associated with the property since it had been multiple parcels and over 50 acres at the time of the llama ranch. It had been the family property of my then fiancé, Craig.  His father was a fanatical animal collector, and his animal of choice was llamas.  In high school, Craig had been an intern and worked for our neighbors, Carole and Greg, who owned an adjacent ranch and quietly had been managing a performing and retirement ranch for chimpanzees.   Craig's brother, Hayden, became interested in training and performing with large animals, and later was able to break into that business, ...

  I am swimming across a vast, threatening channel.   The water is cold and dark.   The current moves me more than I manage to move across it.   I see lights at the far shore, appearing just when I need to see them the most.   I swim, and swim, and swim, until I just need to rest.   I just need to close my eyes against the tide, and the force that pulls at me.   And then I wake and I fight to keep swimming,  because that is all that I can do to stay afloat.   I cannot go under.   I allow myself to dream of the shore and that safety.   I was there, once.   I left the shore, and the warmth of safety on my own accord.   And, now, having become immersed in the dark channel between that time  —the shore; warmth; life; people— and another life, I know that to keep swimming is the only way.   The closer I feel I may be getting to the safety of the shore,  ...

My recent visit to see Alice, my lifelong childhood friend, afforded us a number of opportunities to reminisce. Predictably, the conversation eventually meandered to our memories of the summer day a few years back, when the El Dorado County sheriff raided my property in full riot gear, with dogs and assault weapons at the ready. Alice, her husband William, and Jeff and I were all in shorts and even possibly underwear (having never gotten dressed on a hot September weekday when I was working in my home office and they were newly arrived guests who’d just driven ‘round the US on a late summer vacation to get here). I was in my separate office, a building I’d crafted with love as my sole and separate space where I could work undisturbed. My wonderful, barn-like office building was flooded with filtered light and views of my beach and the American River beyond. I detected movement on the hillside looking away from the beach, and the motion was moving in the direction of the vacant seco...