I was in the yard this morning looking for the long green squash to make some bread. One of the joys of having Richie home is cooking for him and having him cook for me. He's quite the little chef these days, learning as he lives on his own at school. I love to cook and make cozy and since he was little he was always so grateful, marveling what women do as magic.
A bee buzzed past my ear and I almost lost my balance. Those that love me know I have almost no balance and fall all the time and I stopped for a moment to glare at the little rock I slipped on a few days ago and banged my hip so hard it's still sore even though the bruise is gone, a little reminder to 'be more careful.' I could hear my father calling me 'Crash'.
This bee buzzed down my ear, down my throat to my bruised heart and just sat there buzzing. He sneaks in this little bee when no one is looking and then flies somewhere else cause flying is what he does. He sits there and thanking god I can speak and understand buzz talk we share our lives. He tells me about adventure and living life as though it would be over tomorrow and life is like that isn't it? In a flash, in a moment we are worm food or we own the world. The middle part is what sucks, the rotting waiting for the promotion, for love, for happier times, for worry and wonder, for anything good. I'll see Paris soon only a few more weeks, next month will be the start of my busy season and then I'll feel less restless. Summer is the time of wonder and when wonder doesn't show up you start to question your whole world.
So back to this bee buzzing away his stinger taking things I love about me and chewing on it a little making honey, the honey that will make sticky candy later if we are very careful and if we are careless at the same time. This little bee likes adventure more than I do. Can you imagine? It's like finding a child who likes candy more than I do and nobody likes candy more than I do. This bee is singing his song and today he was singing Daniel...Daniel is traveling thursday on a plane. I can see the red taillights traveling to spaaaain. I can see Daniel waving goodbye, Lord it looks like Daniel, must be the clouds in my eyes. They say spain's pretty though I've never been daniel says it's the best place he's ever seen.
Meanwhile my heart is singing make the world go away, the version by Hank Cochran..Do you remember when you loved me? before the world took me astray? If you do, then forgive me and make the world, make it go away. Make the world go away get it off my shoulder, say the things you used to say and make the world go away. My father used to sing this song when my mother was angry with him, when he'd been out drinking.."i'm sorry if I hurt I'll make it up day by day just say you love me like you used to and make the world go away." I have been missing my father lately, mostly missing the magic he had when he had the world angry with him and with one look, one smile, one kiss on the cheek, the anger would melt away and all you wanted was to see him smile like that for awhile.
In all our singing we were exhausted this little bee and I and I sat on my favorite chair on the deck to look at the green oh so green from the rain the night before. The gentle rain comforted me while I drifted off last night and my last thought was writing this morning. He said write when you want, whenever you want this little bee when he was buzzing at my window last night. He wants me to step on a land mine I thought, and that was my last thought. I woke this morning pointing out the scars in the sun out the window in my sanctuary, all the scars from land mines when I was young and fearless. Now I am a day older, a year older, no longer a daughter, hardly a mother, not a wife, an where was the boyfriend today? Oh yes, golfing, meetings and obligations that had so little to do with me. "I held on to let you go and if you lost your love for me, well you never let it show." I was singing when I woke up, humming a little throwing a few words in here and there. I could hear best friend saying "I will listen for a few words that I recognize so I can figure out what the hell you are singing," shaking her head laughing. "and that he missed me sometimes when he's alone in his room, do I feel lonely too? You have no right to ask me how I feel, you have no right to speak to me so kind. We can't go on holding on to ties, so for now we'll go on living separate lives." If you haven't heard this song, throw it up on the ipod. Phil collins and the woman's voice I can't place will make your heart ache a little. "Well I held on to let you go and if you lost your love me, you never let it show. There was no way to compromise (how do you compromise the aching in a heart?) so now we live in separate lives. Ooo, it's so typical love leads to isolation. so you build that wall, yes you build that wall, and you make it stronger. You have no right to ask me how I feel. You have no right to speak to me so kind. Some day I might, I just might find myself looking in your eyes. But for now we'll go on living separate lives."
Life was waiting, toe tapping me.
I wanted to linger a little longer with the bee buzz, buzz buzzing. I needed to get the car serviced something I'm horrible with, the details that kill me. I dislike driving so much. There are days when I feel free in the car, feel free to be fast and dangerous but for the most part it's about being careful, watching, moving without fear all things I hate not dislike, hate. You see there in my garden the bee was on his way. He was coming to fetch me and he has maps and charts and we were leaving. The bee good at the details and I am good at fun. I was busy making cozy, packing a pic nic you could eat in the car. I'd made banana bread, asparagus wrapped in rare roast beef, little melon balls in the shapes of stars and flowers. I made tiny sandwiches with the most wondrous delicacies each wrapped in wax paper two at a time, one for me and one to share. Nothing ordinary as this is not an ordinary bee, not easy to impress and I ached for some smiling bee time. I packed them carefully in a cooler with honey drinks for me and my buzzing bee friend. I have packed endless pic nics like this for the Best Friend and I on hundreds of road trips and I stopped giggling for a moment as she always makes me giggle thinking of the road trip home, home to see her dad for the last time at Christmas. He was waiting there up for us late late into the night while we trudged through more snow than I can remember, eating an entire box of the little mini fannie mae chocolates. You could tell the pieces she'd eaten as there would be one bite missing and then throw back in the box.I remember being afraid to look at the weight marking on the side of the box.
After our pic nic was packed, a pic nic for lovers and bees and wandering women who mused of poetry and cool tea blended with the black tea from the African jungle I started on the fun part. I packed traveling clothes, things with pockets, sun dresses that wouldn't wrinkle some that would look sexy when they did. I'd pack a hat, a big floppy brimmed hat for sitting next to the place he'd climb. I packed a swim suit for a pool, not a lake, a pool with lights for swimming at night. And finally I'd pack the little dress I kept hidden from any eyes the one I imagined I'd wear to a wonderful dinner eating canjun rice with saffron, sitting in the corner, whispering wanting to tell the waiter to throw everything in one of those horrid styro boxes and finish it in bed.
I'd pack a backgammon board, knowing he'd win and not caring one bit. I'd pack old movies adventure movies like Out of Africa so late into the night we could pretend to be Dennys Finchutton and Isek Dennison on the farm alone at night surrounded by her books, drinking very red wine smelling of the african sun.
I'd pack two box kites for box kite fighting in an open field on the side of the road, traffic slowing to watch us. I'd pack my own mo jo necklace I'd made weeks before hoping to trade with some native New Orleanan who we be fascinated with my handiwork. I'd pack beads because I always have beads with me. I'd not forget the music, some books; one of short stories and another of poetry, an empty paged book to write notes; one of those books that looks a little mysterious and wraps with a leather cord. I'd pack watercolors and little things pieces of this and that to paint on and a book of the impressionists so we could match their paintings with the gardens of the south as we both love to plant. Of course we both love to plant. Later we'd talk of a water garden filled with monet's lilies and koi fish afterward finding one of those long lingering New Orleans light poles where he'd kiss me like I was 17 again and this was the first and last kiss I'd ever think about the pink lipstick on his neck, later.
When I heard the buzz and looked up there he was and when he saw these things piled in the drive way with no end he'd just shake his head and say "I thought you were packing light." That was for the trip to pluto, this was for a trip to New Orleans where the weeping willows would be ever so green and my heart ever so red. The blue was fading, yes we were back to red again. The cooler and quilt in the back seat with a few pillows for cloud pondering, everything else in the trunk and tucked under my arm a book of poetry I think Yeats, yeats had a heart full of summer, faeries and mystics along with some spatterings of wisdom and love.
When you are driving you have to look straight ahead and this would be the perfect opportunity for me to wear my dark dark movie star sunglasses and just peek out of the corners getting in some long lingering looks at his jaw line and his shoulders and his hands the hand he'd hold on my knee waiting for an answer, a secret. I wondered how he got the blood stains off. And with that we were off. We'd take a little detour through Indiana to Mt. Baldy. It was one of my surprises of the trip like the little thin square of dark chocolate I'd press to his tongue one night when we were kissing in a hotel room that must have seen a million lovers, a million kisses, moans that could fill a dark room.
I hadn't been to Mt. Baldy since Richie was little. Suzy, David (the oh too young lover who looked at me as though I had fallen from the sky), Richie and myself went for a winter day adventure. We drove to Indiana about an hour away and found this place. You had to drive down a canyon of sorts down a twisting road. At the end was a hill very high. I would sway a thousand feet tall, Suzy would remember it as about 300 feet. It was all sand a giant pile of sand that she talked me into climbing, cajoling me, one step up, would slide two back and was petrified the entire time begging her to end this trip and head home. At the top, an hour later an hour of me complaining and whining there was lake Michigan. It was something out of a sci fi movie, the lake water lapping on the shore carrying huge chunks of ice that would bang each other like a giant never ending car accident.
I wouldn't stand up, no way no how.I was sure a wind off the lake would take me, whooshing away and throw me down the mountain and perhaps not kill me but make me brain dead, a vegetable, like a carrot. I watched the three run over the ice chunks along the beach and point and laugh at me terrified starting to inch my way back down the sand dune.
Today I had other plans. Today I'd walk to the water, today I'd not complain, today I felt fearless and today Mr. Bee was driving all would be good with the world. We'd find a shaky bridge, we drive through the rain, we'd kiss without fear, throwing our cell phones into the lake. Today the world was full of possibilities and fear well i forgot to pack fear.
Enjoy the day! gas up the car! Don't pack light. Bring everything, write a poem, tell someone you love them because you do and leave room in your heart for more love because today may be as good as it gets. If the bee shows up, open your mouth wide. Let him guide you to thoughts of nothing ordinary. Listen to his buzz and know that when he's gone you will miss him terribly.
You can find me at Summerpoet@msn.com and my work as always at www.poetsummer.etsy.com
Carrie.
No comments:
Post a Comment