Illiterations: Laughing At My Own Expense

Hidden Room Wander the decaying old neighborhood Along a damp dark alley Through a heavy oak door Up creaking yielding stairs To my hidden room Scratchy record plays memories Vinyl upholstered couch invites me Metal framed chairs for friends     So rare Smudged metal framed window Looks out on industry and factory    And tenements Only blocks from my life Many years from my life Few steps from there to here Decades from there to here All that I am not there And all that I am here Everything kept hidden there Can be unleashed here 

You know how they say, "Never get down in the mud and wrestle with a pig"?   The reason, it is said, is because eventually you realize the pig loves it.   And so, it is with that advice that I have worked hard to avoid slinging mud -- even if it ’ s the truth -- when my " pig"  of a husband starts up with the character assassinations. How hard is it to keep my mouth shut when he is disparaging me in incredibly personal terms?  Well, it doesn ’ t matter that they are untrue statements. It doesn ’ t matter that he is twisting what happened to fit a narrative he created long before I realized there was cause for concern. What matters is that somehow, in some way, I know that somebody I know and care about is going to see what he wrote before I can hide it or block it or delete it. I ’ ve been a spectator on the sidelines when a friend or somebody I cared about, has gone through this same thing with somebody.   Trying not to respond; to avoid...

  I will remember you.  All the things that lead us   To that moment in my life That broke old shackles;   That started new patterns; That awoke the sleeping wolf. We do not need promises. Your gift to me was that moment. Your gift to me was  everything that led to that moment. I look at you and feel alive,    In a way I had been dead for years. You show me who you are,   I know this. I know our moment   was just that; a moment. And just as I have left   men with moments In my younger years,   I hold on to ours, now. You unchained the wolf. And she walks free, and proud, and ready. -- Nico Holmes

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...