Make Me Paint My Face And Dance. Please.

Mr. Moon is focused.

When I say focused, I mean the man has that unocular thingee (oh yeah, monocle) stuck in his eye like Sherlock Holmes on meth. He is researching the new business. He is online, checking out equipment to buy. He's down at the permitting offices. He's lying awake in bed at night, thinking about all of it. He's talking about it. He's NOT TALKING ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE.
This is what happens every time Mr. Moon decides to go into a new business venture. Every time.

Which is why he's been successful.
Which is why I love him.
But which also DRIVES ME INSANE!

"What do you want for supper, Mr. Moon?"

"I don't know. How small a kitchen do you think we can get away with down there and can we use the same refrigerator for kegs as for the kitchen?"

This is my life now.

Everything I say somehow leads to something about this new business. Everything.
Meanwhile, I'm thinking that if SOMEONE doesn't take me away for a romantic weekend (Hey! I'll take a night!) somewhere where no cooking, dogs, or laundry are involved, I think I might die.

My mascara is drying up in the tube. My shimmery eye shadows are languishing in their pots. My going-out clothes are as useless to me as an extra blind eyeball would be.

I have forgotten how to be a girl. I have forgotten how to flirt, dance or order from a menu.

I might as well be the head matron at an all-women prison.

Please honey- for one second- let it go. Remind me of the man I met who would stop on the side of the road to pick me wildflowers. Remind me of the man who used to dance with me in the kitchen.

I mean yes, I am happy to pull up sod. I am happy to cook, do laundry and scrub toilets in this house that I love. I am thrilled to see you excited about something again and to watch you go into action mode.

BUT- I AM NOT AN ANIMAL! I AM A GIRL!

I think.

Remind me.

And no, going down to Bradenton with you to pressure wash your sister's house is not a romantic weekend away.

Sorry.

And I need to quote a Lyle Lovett song here which I love in which he says, "If I were the man that you wanted, I would not be the man that I am."

Well. Mr. Moon is the man that I want. And he most definitely is the man that he is.

And no. I am not going to greet him at the door wearing Saran Wrap. So don't even suggest that.

That is not romance. That would be a darn waste of good Saran Wrap. And what if he was late getting home from work? What am I supposed to do while I'm waiting, all wrapped in Saran Wrap? What if a neighbor wanted to borrow a cup of sugar?
You see my point. You'd see a lot more than that if I dressed in Saran Wrap which possibly IS my point.

Sometimes I think that women need other women for romance. Not sex. Unless that's how you're wired. No, what I'm talking about is the hearts and flowers thing. Men start out all flowery and poetic but then, next thing you know, they're talking about one stall or two in the restrooms of the new business and also urinals. URINALS!
Women don't talk about urinals.
Women don't usually bring home dead animals for you to cook either, but that's another post and actually, I think men believe they ARE being romantic when they bring home dead animals for you to cook.

So perhaps it just all boils down to definition and semantics.

I don't know! I don't care! I just know I'm not getting any younger and I'm going to be a grandmother soon and dear God, just please- a cheap motel and a good dinner out.

WHERE WE DO NOT TALK ABOUT URINALS!

I'll even wear high heels.
Oh wait. I gave them all to Goodwill.
But I will shave my legs. I promise.

If I can remember how.

Winter Poem

The wisteria is bare and brown
Twisted and turning, it waits
For more warmth and some mystic trick of
Light
Before it will chance going green.
The sun is going down through
The naked pecans now and
I worked in the yard today
Digging up sod
Which had been placed there
Months ago
As part of a project for another piece of property we own
It had already put down roots and the weeds had
Thrust their green selves up through it
The betony and dollar weed, their thick white
Roots snap when you pull them
And I don't care how careful I was,
They are going to take themselves back to that other property
But leaving plenty living here, believe me.

I went and packed up my costumes at the Opera House
Sally, Marion, Nancy, Esther, Judith
Their clothes and their hair and jewelery and handbags and shoes
All in a bin I'll take with me when we do the play again.
"Are you having any after-effects?" inquired Jack as he was taking down the set
And I said,
"Well, I've felt like crying all day."
"But beyond that, all is well?" he asked, chuckling a little.
Kathleen washed the prop dishes and
We wrapped them in white paper and set them in a cooler
To carry with us to Milton next month where we'll do the play
In a high school auditorium.
And oh, how we are looking forward to that!
Last night's audience was insanely happy
Probably drunk, who cares?
They laughed at everything, they got all the jokes,
They applauded way too often.
We loved them and wanted to kiss them all good-night.
At the very least.

Yes, the wisteria is brown
But the magnolia is bright, glossy green
And I know that even as I sit here
Watching the sun go down
It is cooking up some amazing blossoms
That will open in April
Creamy white, bigger than my head
And will smell of lemon and are as precious as babies
To the mother tree, I can only imagine.
The wisteria, too, is thinking about the way
It will become green with tiny, twisting leaves
That open and unfold
And make way for the purple blossoms it will bear
Smelling of perfume which enchants and intoxicates the bees.

I wonder where the bees are.
Waiting for the stage manager to nod
And whisper
Time
To make their appearance.
As we all do.

The timing and trick of light
The hefting of hunks of brown grass and dirt
The packing of wigs in their bag
The velvets and sequins in their bin
The subtle magnolia
The assertive, bawdy wisteria
Waiting for their cues

All waiting
And the birds sing
And tell me
Wait, wait, wait
It will all come around again.
Taste the air
And you can tell
It will all come around again.



And the setting sun shines gold
On the moss-bearded oaks
Another trick of light
Another magic light-streamed flight
Day pours itself into the night
And the silver moon will rise
Full-bellied
The sight
Will give me patience
To wait

Later Life For Later Life

Last night we performed the play for ninety-five people. That's a lot for a dinner theater at the Opera House where the play is performed not in the upstairs auditorium but downstairs in one of the big, open rooms.

We all agreed, during our time of waiting while the folks were finishing up their dinners, that none of us really felt as if we were actually going to do the play again. Like- we did this last week. Again? Really? Tonight?

And yet there we were, getting into our costumes, checking our make-up and props, waiting for the director to come in and tell us to get ourselves backstage.

And of course it ended up being the best performance we've done yet.
I finally feel as if I know my lines, inside and out, no problem.
(I shouldn't even say that. How far do I want to tempt fate? Huh?)
But still, it's a relaxing feeling, knowing that the lines will come, and then being able to adapt, move around in our characters, add this or that to make it a better performance.

The audience last night was odd. All of the usual lines that always get big laughs got nothing but a sort of restrained titter that scattered around the room like a short, fake-you-out rain shower which promises but does not deliver, a few drops of water on the windshield, nothing more.
One of my characters has a line describing a man she's met who wants to become a woman. I make it as full of drama as possible, setting the audience up for a bit I do when I deliver the line, "I know. But I mean, OUCH!" and I usually do a fake crotch grab and bend over a little bit but last night I GRABBED THAT CROTCH in my velvet skirt and I went for the gold.

Titter.

Little raindrops of expressed appreciation. Nothing more.
But several times when my partner-in-crime and I left the stage, we got applause. So what was that about?

And then, and THEN, during one of the most dramatic and heart-rending parts of the play, they suddenly began to laugh. The huge, deep belly-laughs that we'd been hoping for all night finally came out.
"Sadistic fucks," whispered the guy who plays opposite me and all of us backstage looked at each other in disbelief.

So it was a strange night, but a very good one, and they applauded long and loud when it was over.

You just never know.

And we'll do it again tonight. Mr. Moon's sister is coming up from Sarasota to see the play and my daughter HoneyLuna will be there with a good friend of hers whom I love as one of my own and I haven't seen her in a long time so that will be fun. I think I'll be okay, knowing they're out there.

And that will be that until we perform in Milton on March 7 and then we're going to do it again on March 31 for a group of cyclists (?!) and then that really will be that. I'm glad we have these lagniappe performances because it means we'll have to get together between now and then to go over lines, make sure we still have it. Which means we won't have that sinking feeling after the performance tonight of, "Oh no! Our family is breaking up."

No. We get to go on for another month or so, still playing together, still saying these lines, grabbing our crotches and going for the gold, making each other laugh, which is far more important somehow than making the audience laugh, although we love it when they do.

And I suppose this is the joy of community theater. No one has invested big bucks in us and sets and costumes. We raid our own closets and lend each other wigs and glasses and build the sets of parts of old sets and black cloth and we're not going to have to shut down if the reviews aren't good, dimming the lights of the theater and finding ourselves out on the streets auditioning for another play, yet another chance at glory.

No. We get our glory cracking each other up and supporting each other and thanking each other and teasing each other and hugging each other and last night when one of the directors hugged me, I actually cried a little.

"Thank-you," I said. "Thank-you for letting me play."

And I felt like a pure, clean rain had washed down upon me as he hugged me back.

The Wisdom of Giving Birth

It got down to fourteen degrees in Tallahassee yesterday. Fourteen. This is not a temperature we here in North Florida are accustomed to. We are not comfortable with ice unless it comes from the freezer.
I know. Bitch, bitch, bitch.

I don't know why I'm feeling so bitchy. It's cold.
Wah-wah.
I feel completely unromanced lately.
Wah-wah.
The dogs are pooping all over the house because they don't want their little tushies to get cold. Wah-wah.
Mr. Moon is thundering down the road to start up a new business venture which is going to involve me, probably frying chicken wings in a vat of hot grease with sporting events blasting out of numerous televisions.
Wah-wah.
After two years of taking yoga (or is it one? I think it's two) my teacher still finds it necessary to remind us to hold in our abs to protect our backs at least a half dozen times an hour.
Wah-wah.
Did I say it's cold and that I'm feeling completely unromanced?
Yes. I did.
Wah-wah.

Anyway, it's Friday, here we are, and I need to run to Publix. When I discovered that Lily was pregnant, I ordered her three books which she absolutely has to have and they arrived yesterday. One of them, Spiritual Midwifery, I have definitely talked about before here. The other two, Ina May's Guide To Childbirth and Heart and Hands, are wonderful books and I am excited to give them to Lily to read because they have so much wisdom between their covers about pregnancy and childbirth but it is Spiritual Midwifery that I am most excited to give her. I still have my original copy which dates back to the middle ages (1978) and which is so well-thumbed and read and reread that the back cover is missing. It is a wonderful book and it not only plainly and frankly discribes the physiology of pregnancy and childbirth, but it talks a great deal about the emotional and spiritual changes a woman needs to experience in order to have a baby and become a mother.

Ina May Gaskin,



who wrote the book, believes quite strongly that the mind-body connection is terrifically important, especially during labor.
She has this to say about it:

Since mind and body are One, sometimes you can fix the mind by working on the body and you can fix the body by working on the mind.

She doesn't mean this in any hippie-dippie way, either. She's delivered thousands and thousands of babies and she knows what works and what doesn't work. She doesn't use hormones or forceps or drugs. She uses touch and steering the energy and helping the couple to connect on both the mind and body level to help make the birthing woman's body relax and open so that her baby can be born. I've met Ina May. I've heard her talk. And she is quite possibly one of the most pragmatic, direct-speaking people I've ever met. She takes being a midwife incredibly seriously and would never fool around with theories that don't work.

I have often wondered if the reason it always took me so long to have a baby is that I am so fearful of trust. Trust in myself, in my partner, in my own body and in the birthing process itself. I would not be surprised if this were not true. However, I will say this- going through labor without drugs but with the help of a caring and attentive midwife and with the help and love and support of my partner went a long way in helping me to resolve some of the trust issues in my life. As well as showing me just how strong and amazing my body is.
Not that I would advise anyone to have a baby just to do healing on themselves, but I do think it's common for women who go through childbirth undrugged to come out of the experience with a great deal more respect for themselves. It's just impossible not to.

So I'm going to take these books to Lily at work and I'm going to give them to her and I hope she reads them because just as her body is making incredible adjustments and tricky adaptations to create a new life, her mind is going to have to make some adjustments and adaptations to be a mother. And just flipping through Spiritual Midwifery has reminded me of some things that I need to be reminded of myself. Such as this one:

Don't complain. It makes things worse. If you usually complain, practice not doing it during pregnancy. It will build character.

And this:

Keep your sense of humor- it's a priceless gem which keeps you remembering where it's at. If you can't be a hero, you can at least be funny while being a chicken.

Frankly, I need to quit bitching and I need to keep my sense of humor and I need to read Spiritual Midwifery again, cover to cover, to help me help Lily through these next few months and during the birth of her baby.
And to remind me that the lessons learned giving birth and being a mother are lessons I still need to know because if there's one thing I'm sure of, it's that we continually give birth to ourselves over and over again, heart, mind, body, and soul.

It's cold. I need to put on a sweater and remember it will warm up.
I'm feeling unromanced. I need to ask for what I need.
The dogs are pooping all over the house. I need to clean it up.
My husband is starting a new business venture. I need to help him and learn to fry chicken wings if that's the sort of help he needs.
I need to hold my abs in to protect my back.

I need to take these books to Lily because she and Jason need to read them. They're going to have a baby. And there's more to having a baby than being hooked up to electronic monitors and being put on an IV drip and letting medical personnel have their way with you. Even if something arises wherein Lily needs to go to the hospital to have her baby, every bit of information and knowledge she has in her back pocket will help as she gives birth to her baby, as she gives birth to herself as a mother and to Jason as a father.
As she gives birth to me as a grandmother.
That's a lot of responsibility for one woman, but Lily is strong. She can do it. She may not know it yet, but she can.
And she will. With the help of Jason and the midwife and hopefully, me, in whatever capacity she wants me to help her. I am starting by giving her these books and it feels like a sacred honor to do so.
Handing over the wisdom and knowledge that got me through four pregnancies and labors where I was a brave, funny little chicken and sometimes complained and sometimes lost my sense of humor but I tried and I somehow managed to birth the four strong children I have today.
Which all reminds me that really, I have nothing to complain about.

Nothing at all.

Honey, Are You Smokin' De Dope? Are You Kissin' De Boys?

I've always been the sort of mother who doesn't want to know EVERYTHING about her children. Even when they were in high school. Mostly I didn't want to know how they felt about me at times because when you're in high school it's quite common not to completely and utterly adore your mother. Have you noticed this?

And if I wanted to know if one of my kids was, oh, say, smoking pot or having sex, I'd just say, "Honey. Are you getting stoned and having sex?"
And then, no matter what they said, I could tell if they were lying. Which presented a problem because if they were, what was I supposed to do?
Say, "I know you're lying. Now tell me the truth."

Well, that's one option.

The other is to say, "Great. I'm glad you're not having stoned sex but if you ever decide to, let's chat about it, okay, because having stoned sex can lead to all sorts of things like being a mother at the age of fifteen and how are you going to go to school, raise a baby and get employment which you will need to do to pay for the marijuana. And diapers. Because I am not giving my left-over precious cloth diapers to a stoned fifteen-year old mother, even if she is my daughter."

Etc.

This mostly worked for me.
Oh, some of my kids were a little less forthcoming and a lot more adventuresome than I might have wanted but looking back to my own teen-aged years, I don't know that they were any worse than I was. And I always kept that in mind and remembered that somehow, I made it through alive and grew up to have teenagers of my own and live in a brick house with a heating and air-conditioning system.
And since I knew that they were at least as smart as I was at their age, they'd probably manage, too.
Which they have done.

Splendidly!

I remember once when Posey's was still open and I think we were all down there for Mother's Day (and what says Mother's Day like going down to a dive bar on the water and drinking beer and eating oysters with your kids?) and there was a table of college students next to us. One of the girls appeared to be Asian and she was talking very loudly and she was funny. She was telling the table about her dad and the way he handled the sticky issue of trying to get a handle on what your teenager is doing when she's not at home. She did a great imitation of an older Asian man saying things like, "You been smokin' de dope? You been kissin' de boy?"
And so forth.

We still, in our family, sometimes ask this of each other because we all think it's funny. "You been smokin' de dope? You been kissin' de boy?"
And I think it's mostly funny because obviously, all cultures have the same worries about their children. All parents want to know if their children are doing things which can lead them down paths which can only result in tangled and torturous problems but then again, we don't want to know because what if they are?
Shit. Then you have to DO something about it.

Like talk to them about things like sex and drugs which is hard, I don't care how open your family is or how well you've always tried to communicate with them. Kids do not want to even IMAGINE that their parents have ever had sex, although maybe three or four times they must have because look at all these siblings. And so if they pretend that their parents have lived completely chaste albeit affectionate lives together then they also have to believe that Mom has no idea what she's talking about when it comes to sex and so SHUT-UP, SHUT-UP, SHUT-UP!

Right?
Right.

Well, we all stumble through. I remember a long time ago talking to a woman who has spent her life in child-care and has all sorts of doctorial degrees in the subject telling me that she wanted her college-aged daughter to gain some experience in sex before marriage which meant something between being a virgin and taking on the entire football team.
I loved that.
And frankly, I've never had much of a problem with considering the fact that my children might have sex, even before college because hell- that's part of life and that's all there is to it, and when you get down to it, an important part, too.
But I wanted them to be safe and I wanted them to know that because it IS so important it shouldn't be undertaken lightly or with the wrong person.
Blah, blah, blah.

And drugs? Well, I just tried to be open about my experiences without leaving them open-mouthed with disbelief. Let me be quite clear here- any experiences with drugs I may or may not have may have happened a long, long time ago. Having children pretty much took up all the time and energy and money I may or may not have spent otherwise engaged in illegal drug use.

Sometimes I think it would just be so much easier if I were a religious person. The kind of religious person who, when confronted with a worry or a fear or a seemingly insurmountable problem could say Let go and let God. Who could just put it all in a loving diety's hands and go ahead and make fried chicken for the church potluck dinner.
And who when confronted with the need to discuss topics like sex and drugs with their kids could just say NO. Don't do it. You'll burn in hell so forget it.

But I'm not. And I had a bit of a mispent youth and to me, hyprocisy is one of the worst sins of all and although I am rampantly guilty of it at times, I try not to be. And if there's one thing that really ticks me off (and you know there's more than one but for this purpose, I'll limit it to one) it's when a parent who not only smoked de dope and kissed de boys (or girls) when young but injected the dope and had countless meaningless and no doubt unsafe sexual adventures as a younger person grows up to be the sort of parent who gets his or her panties all in a twist if they discover that their own child is nibbling a few apples that don't fall far from the tree.
I mean, come on.
Come the fuck ON.

Look- when I see that a child of mine needs help in any way, I will step in and offer whatever love and support I can give. That goes without saying.

But when it comes to the stuff that almost everyone does and which I may or may not have done myself, I figure, especially after the child is eighteen, that it really is not my business.

Just as certain things in my life are not their business.

And doesn't it all boil down to respect? I know and respect my children and I think they respect me. They certainly know me. I've never pretended to be perfect and I've never thought they were either. Although they're pretty darn close and always amazing. And let's face it- certain things that would cause some parents to lose their minds with worry and concern don't worry or concern me at all.
In fact, I'd be worried if they weren't doing certain things.
Of course, this doesn't mean I want them becoming crack addicts or taking on the entire football team.
But you know, we all have to try things. We all have to figure out for ourselves what's worth our attention, time, energy and money and what is not.
Listen- ya-ya's will come out sooner or later. Get that shit over with before you start having children. That's my thought on the matter.

And if my kids want to tell me about some of this ya-ya'ing, I'm up for it. Well, most of it.
Or at least some of it.
Enough to make me laugh. Enough to satisfy me that they're normal and actually my own child. Because yes, I've ya-ya'ed a few times myself.
I'll admit it. I've smoked de dope. I've kissed the boys.
And sometimes- it was really fun.
And now, looking back from my golden years it makes me giggle to think of those days.
And sigh in wonder that I'm still alive.
With my very own heating and air-conditioning system.
And I hope the same for my children. My very own human children whom I respect so very, very much. And whom, I think, respect me.

Not because I'm perfect, but because I'm human and have been honest with them.
Mostly.
Just as they have been with me.

And that is good enough. No. That is just great.

Grand Mysteries In Everyday Miraculous Life

When I used to live in a ten by fifty foot trailer with two children and a husband, I used to dream that I would find extra rooms. I'd open an until-then unknown door and there would be a room. A real room.
And when I woke up, it would be gone and the magical door would have disappeared.
Now I live with no children and one husband in large house and we have many extra rooms. Some I never even go in. I don't climb those stairs from one week to the next.




But I like knowing those rooms are up there, one of them Miss HoneyLuna's, in case she needs to come home and one of them a sort of spare guestroom and spare it is. There is a bed, a vanity, a light, a chair. Not very cozy, but it will do when we need it.

My "real" guestroom is downstairs and I love that room. I call it the Panther Room because of the light I bought in a little place in Keystone Heights called the Pack Rat. I think I saw it and craved it for two years before I finally bought it and brought it back here to this wonderful old house I live in.



I hear that at one time in its history, this house was a stop-off for truck drivers who wanted a cold beverage and a little female company. Supposedly, the room that I now call the Panther Room was where the pool table was located and which was where the fellas could spend a little time until it was their turn to visit the ladies, who worked upstairs.
I have no idea if this is true, but it's quite possible. I live right off a road which connects Highway 27 and Highway 90, which would have been convenient.

Who knows? Not me. But I love having this room for folks to stay in when they come and visit. Big Lou and Maxine are frequent guests (although not frequent enough to suit me) and various relatives have stayed here, including Mr. Moon's sister who slept in that bed during a hurricane and I'm sure she'll never forget that night.

Anyway, last night an old friend of mine slept in the Panther Room.
This is a friend I've known since high school. Over the years we have, for some reason, stayed in touch, first with real letters written on paper and mailed in envelopes with stamps and now by e-mail. Type, hit send. Done. I wonder how many words we've sent each other over all the years of our communication. No way to tell. But it's a miracle to me that we've done this and it means so much to me, somehow, that we still care enough to tell each other our news, to stay in touch, to say Tell me how it goes, what have you learned this week? How's the grandson? Did you hear? I'm going to be a grandmother! Here's a poem I wrote. What do you think?
It's rare that we actually see each other, but sometimes we get the chance.
He had to be in Tallahassee yesterday for a solar energy thing and spent the night with us. When he came in after the conference Mr. Moon mixed the martinis and I ladled out the soup and sliced the bread and after we ate and laughed and cleaned up, we were all ready for bed by ten thirty and he went to sleep in the Panther Room.
By the time I got up this morning, he was already hard at work on his laptop and I gave him a smoothie for his breakfast and he was out of here by seven forty-five to get back to Central Florida, his wife and his law practice.

And now I'm here, all alone in this big old house, thinking of times long gone but that seem like yesterday in my mind.

I wonder what this house would think about if it could think. Ladies of the night (or afternoon, more likely), births, deaths, marriages, fallings-in-love, merry times, cozy times, hard times, stormy times.
I took another picture of the guest room with the flash on and when I looked at it, there were "orbs" in it.



This same thing happens when people take pictures at the Opera House but I think they're just dust or light reflection.

But who the hell knows? Maybe they are the spirits of the people who have lived and died in these old rooms, but really is it any less profoundly interesting to think that long after we're gone a small bit of dust made up of our skin, having hidden for years between two boards, will rise up to become a ghostly orb in a picture?

Anyway, it's nothing short of a miracle to me. All of it. The dust, our bones, the laughter, the breaking of bread, the life we're living, the fact that friends can be friends for almost forty years and that we can welcome our friends, hug them in welcome, say so wonderful to see you, tuck them up in a Panther Room to sleep, then hug them in goodbye the next morning.

Say come back soon.

Your room will be waiting.

So wonderful to see you.

And as I wrote that sentence, a burst of cold air came through and the two front doors swung wide open, which I do not understand as they are latched in two separate places.

So many mysteries in this life. And isn't that grand?

I don't want to know everything. Sometimes I just want to be grateful for sudden bursts of something that make our hearts swing wide open, even if we think they're latched. That remind us of how cozy we are, how lucky, how very, very blessed by the everyday miracles of love and friendship and extra rooms and the dust of our skin, making ghosts of us perhaps while we are still, in fact, very much here, like the memories we have which arise up and are suddenly a part of our present as well as our past.

The dust rises up, the camera catches it, magnifies it, makes it visible.
The old friend visits, the memories rise up, we make them visible with our sharing over soup.

We are still here. We are still there.
I don't quite understand.

But I am grateful for the mysteries and the miracles, as prosaic as dust, as startling as ghosts, as real as the house where I sit on this cold clear day, old yet strong, all the molecules bouncing around, zipping and zooming, even as they appear to be still.

A Soupbowl Full Of Beans

So, Saturday night? No pooches were screwed in the making of our play. A few pups were flirted with, but none were actually screwed. Despite the fact that Lon and Lis came over all the way from Keystone Heights and were sitting RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE STAGE, I managed to mostly do fine. I begged the two cast members who are onstage while I'm frantically trying to get the wig on for my old lady, to speak as slowly as they could without making it too obvious. The wig went on. I managed my accents. Mostly.
Mr. Perkins, who built the Opera House in 1890 and who is rumored to haunt the old building, did not seem to care. No lights flickered and went out. No eerie sounds were mysteriously heard.
There did seem to be an intermittent flow of cold air in the backstage area but that was probably because we kept opening the door to the outside.
So that was fine. We do it again on Friday and Saturday nights and then on March 7 we are taking the play on the road to Milton, Florida as a fund-raiser for their old theater which recently had a fire in it.
MILTON!
I don't even know where it is, but I think it's north of Pensacola. And that's where our band of merry actors will be headed to perform our play in a high school gym. Or something.
Kathleen- I'll bring the vodka, you bring the olives.

Okay. Let's talk about Michael Phelps smoking dope. (Do they still call it dope? I have no idea. Weed. How's that? Better?)
Here's what I have to say about it:
You go, boy. Do not apologize. Ain't nobody's business if you do.
The fact that marijuana is still illegal, sort of, is ridiculous.
Done.

Did you see Bruce Springsteen at the Super Bowl? I did. That was the only twelve minutes I watched. I have been in love with Bruce for many, many years. Still am. And he's in love with me. As proof I offer the fact that he has written about a thousand songs addressing me by name. Which is Mary. Also the fact that during the Born In The USA tour he played in Tallahassee because I wrote him a letter asking him to. Why else would he have come to Tallahassee? Just so he could do that old song Tallahassee Lassie?
I think not.
Some people love the Boss and some people do not. That's okay. Even my beloved Billy does not like the Boss. That's putting it mildly. I think he says something like, "I hate his fucking guts." I don't care. I still love Billy and I still love the Boss. Billy can listen to Reba who is perhaps the Old Aunt. I will listen to Bruce, who is the Boss.
I loved it when he did the crotch-slide across the stage and I wished with all my heart that he would do what I've seen him do before which is to kiss Clarence (Big Man) Clemmons on the lips but sadly, he did not. Still, it was a hell of a crotch-slide, especially for a fifty-eight year old man.

Now. On to the octuplets born in California to Nadya Suleman, a single mother who already has six children.
Excuse me?
Can anyone tell me why a doctor world implant a woman with eight embryos? Don't tell me that this is ethical. It is not. I have checked. And it's not common practice. Who paid for this and who is going to pay for the millions of dollars of medical bills those babies are going to rack up? Not just now but for the rest of their lives because they are going to have health problems stemming from their premature births and that is that. I heard (on NPR, of course) that the mother thinks she will be making some money by selling her story and pictures of the babies. Perhaps there will be a reality show. I'm sure there already is. In her dreams. But knowing the level to which reality shows have descended, perhaps she is right.
Look. This isn't funny. This is some creepy, creepy shit.
And anyone who has raised even one infant at a time knows that no one on earth is capable of raising eight. With six other children to take care of too.
There are some doctors who have a lot to explain because this woman did not manage to implant those embryos on her own. This is not an example of the miracles of modern science. This is an example of the corruption of technology for some purpose which I cannot even begin to discern.

All right. On to dogs. I have figured out the solution to my dog problem. I will gladly let Barack Obama and his family adopt my dogs, Buster and Dolly. They are three-quarters poodle which means they are mostly hypoallergenic. There is one dog for Sasha and one for Malia. Buster and Dolly will be very happy in the White House and my dog Zeke will be very happy that Buster and Dolly are not here trying to kill him. Buster and Dolly will not try to kill Sasha and Malia because they are girls, not Yorkshire Terriors. I will even pay shipping and handling to get Buster and Dolly up to Washington.
Problems solved.

And now, because I have an old friend from out of town staying here tonight I need to attend to things like linen-changing and floor-sweeping. I also need to take a walk. And make soup. Tonight's soup will be a lovely thing made of smoked-turkey broth, garbanzo beans, sweet potatoes, venison sausage and greens from the garden. It is going to be cold tonight and soup will taste good. I wish I could give every one of you a bowl.

Believe me, there will be enough.

Until Spring, These Will Do

Eh. Damp and chilly here today and supposed to rain and then get down into the twenties again.
Dang. I just unwrapped my porch plants and now I'll have to wrap 'em up again.

Winter is just not my favorite season. There are things about it I like, the number one being the fact that when I have a hot flash at night, I always have a cold, cold pillow to drag from beneath the window and hug to my body which is a sort of ecstasy no man will ever know.

And also, the camellias.

When we moved here, there was only one camellia bush in the whole yard, which shocked the hell out of me. Also, no mulberry tree. And no palms except for a whole bunch of sagos, which are not really palms at all, but are pretty, nonetheless although they are hell to trim because their branches are sharp as needles and when they prick you, which they invariably do, they leave a sore itchy place.

I brought two camellias with me which I transplanted and they are doing nicely and Mr. Moon and I cleaned out a bed in the back yard which cried out for camellias and we bought and planted a few more.

Now camellias are not an instant answer to your landscaping problems. They take forever to grow and by golly, if you see a camellia big enough for a child to climb, that thing must have been there for a hundred years. I have lived in houses with camellias like that.

But anyway, my baby camellias in the back yard which Mr. Moon and I planted are just starting to bloom this year, their fourth year, here in Lloyd and every one of them is a gift. Their bright blossoms stand out in the dull winter landscape like candy on a gray tablecloth. I am loathe to pick them but pick them I do because they are going to turn brown and drop off their bushes anyway and if I put them in my vase, I can enjoy them every time I walk by, which is about fifty times a day.

The funny thing is, my very favorite camellia is the Pink Perfection


which is pink and which is perfect and which I could have sworn was one of those which I brought over from my old house. However, that poor drought-stressed bush is finally blooming this year and it is NOT a Pink Perfection, although it is a lovely camellia, white with pink borders, the yellow stamens in the center.

How could this have happened?

Well, luckily the nurseries sell them and I will just go out and buy one and plant it.
Because winter is gray and brown and chilly and damp and everything I can do to try and cheer up my little part of the world when it's like this is a good thing. I make soup, I plant camellias. I wait for them to bloom.

And Mr. Moon keeps the bird feeder supplied with seed and the cardinals come and make a spot of brilliant scarlet that flutters and dips to feed. Yesterday I saw a huge pileated woodpecker climbing a pecan tree, his red and black and white feathers a startling contrast to the gray sky, the gray of the leafless, resting pecan. A gift.




Some seasons you have to pay a little bit closer attention to find color, to see the sort of beauty that stirs your heart.

Spring is a cheap thrill, only in that it is so abundantly full of life and color and I look forward to that glorious over-abundant spill of dogwood blossoms, wisteria and azalea.

But for now, I must make do with the delicate beauty of the camellia, the tiny sweet faces of the white violets blooming in the yard over near the old barn, the birds at the feeder and in the trees, their sudden explosion of color a shock, a thrill, a blessing of swift flying joy in the midst of the otherwise dull winter palette here in North Florida.

A Memory, Tagged (click on the pictures to make them big)

Jon, over at Website De La Illiteratei, has been tagged in one of those bloggie games and in this one, you go to where you keep your photos on your computer, open the fourth album or folder, then open the fourth picture in it.
Simply because it piqued my curiosity, I went to my iPhoto's, opened the fourth album and opened the fourth picture. It brought back so many memories I wanted to post it.



The name of the album it came from is Cozumel 2003. And I remember the day we got on our rented scooter and drove down to where this picture was taken but I couldn't remember the name of the beach or the bar or the sweet, sweet fellow we met that day so I got out my old journal from that trip and I opened it up.
Here's part of an entry from from that day, 10/27/03:

We went to Palencar beach and a guy named Fernando talked to us, Glen mostly, about fishing and he showed us a crocodile and also birds behind a fence and in cages. Parrots, parakeets, turkeys, chickens, peacocks. We ate some shrimp quesadillas and guacamole.
The water was beautiful.

And it was. Here's a picture of that:



And the crocodile:




I remembered that we went back a few days later and Glen dove with Fernando. I don't scuba so I laid on the beach and swung in a hammock and read and dozed and when the fellas came back off the water, we ate lunch and there were pictures taken then, too.
Here's Fernando, playing with one of the parrots:



How beautiful is that man? Well, boy. But still. The Maya on Cozumel (and I cannot speak for the Maya everywhere) are the most peaceful and kind folks I think I have ever met as a group. In all of my many trips, I've never seen the slightest act of violence or even discord among them, either the children or adults, although I am not under the delusion that it does not happen.
But still, I've never seen it.
During my times on the island I've seen plenty of weird and violent behavior but always from the tourists and inevitably the American ones. But the Maya display an almost saintly attitude towards the tens of thousands of tourists disgorged upon their shores, even the cruisers who have five or six hours to shop at the cruise line approved stores, eat at the cruise line approved restaurants and drink at the cruise line approved bars.
Believe me, there is vomiting involved. And bad behavior. And ugly behavior. There is an art to bargaining. Most Americans do not have it.

But no matter how many times we go back, and how many changes we see on the island, the one thing that seems to remain the same is the people and their gentle, humorous spirits. They will stop to help you if you appear to need help. They will volunteer to show you things on their island they are proud of. They beam when you compliment their children. They will remember what you drink, what you put in your coffee and if you go back often enough, they will remember your name and your story.

And I remember them.

Here's a picture of me and Fernando from that first day we met him:



And how could you forget a smile like that? A profile like the one in the picture of him with the parrot? The first time I ever went to Cozumel I felt as if I had been dropped into a living version of the National Geographic Magazine with noses and profiles and eyes all around me just like the ones on the pages National Geographic that I had studied all my life; the pictures of the paintings on the walls of the ancient ruins of the Maya. These people never disappeared. They live on and have babies and fish and love and smile. They share their stories, they share their knowledge and their skills and their jokes. They are living their lives.

Here's another entry from that journal. It's a poem and not a good one, but here it is:

The water is flat tonight
But the wake from the dive boats
Who are speeding across
In and out
Leave wakes which slap the shore
The breast of Cozumel Island.
These Maya are as comfortable on the water
As in their mama's laps.
We met a boy named Fernando Conrado Silviera
Whose mother told him that
He was born
On a boat
With his mask and fins on
And a regulator in his mouth.
She's probably right.
The water, the water, the water
The sky
Blue, blue, blue and green.
The only way I can give this up
Is knowing
That it will be here
When I return
And that the Maya
Will be here too.
Speeding across the water
And living beside the water
Under their Caribbean
Mayan sky.

The next day I wrote a better poem. The picture I have to go with it we did not take but the place it was taken is a place we did visit, which was Chichen Itza where we hired a guide, a man half MY size who was so serious about what his people (and that's how he referred to them- my people) had accomplished, had created and who had so much to tell us and show us that he was impatient with Mr. Moon who kept wanting to stop and take pictures.

Anyway, here is my poem and here is a picture of Chac Mool, the Mayan deity whose hands hold a bowl in which the beating hearts of sacrificial victims were placed:

Chac Mool might as well be holding his hands out
For my heart.
Here, you crazy God, you bloody boy.
Just go ahead and receive it.
It's yours.

These memories. They are so sweet. And because I have the journal out and because it's a beautiful day here in Lloyd but my heart has been thrown back in time to that island, here's one more thing I wrote during that trip while I was on the beach in a coconut grove while Mr. Moon dove beneath those blue, blue, blue green waters with Fernando:

I wish I could cut my hair, get Ixchel tattoed on one shoulder, the map of Cozumel on the other, go home changed physically because I am changed inside.
Again.

And then on the last night, at sunset, I wrote this:

Why do the tiny swallows cry out
Except to say
I am alive again
And there is food in the air?

There is food in the air of that island for me. It has filled my heart to bursting so many times.
Thanks, Jon, for giving me a reason, no matter how unintended, to go back in my mind to revisit the place that has always filled my heart, my soul.



Cozumel.

How I Screwed The Pooch And Became Humbled

Okay. So the preview night on Thursday went well. Probably too well. The Altrusa's were wined up (that is not a typo- there was a lot of wine involved) and happy. I was barely nervous. The rest of the cast was mellow too. We were all ready and raring to go and go we did.
Things went fairly smoothly, no one did anything crazy and I felt comfortable and natural on the stage. When it was over, I jumped up and down and said, "We did it!" and we had. We got lots of praise and I went and washed the prop dishes to try and relieve some of the swelling of my head.

That was Thursday night.

Last night, Friday night, was a different story. Almost my whole family was there. Sitting there at a table watching me. The mama. The wife. And I just could not forget that fact.

My first character, the lady most like me, came on and I did fine with her. Just fine.

And then I left the stage and that's where things started going downhill for me. I have to change, in the space of about a page and a half of dialogue, from a woman about my age to an older Jewish lady with a completely different costume AND a wig and hat. And purse. I could not get the wig to sit right and stay on. I didn't have time to get my funky big bracelet on. I hit the stage a few beats late and the very, very worst thing happened: I couldn't do my accent.

I completely lost my accent. The accent which in the initial audition for the play I already had nailed. The easiest, the funniest in the context of character, the one I have always felt most comfortable doing. It was gone.

And so there I was, all over the geographical United States, trying this one out and that one, having an out-of-body panic attack while the people behind me on stage were probably peeing their pants while sitting in stunned silence and I was dropping lines and all I could think of was, "Where am I? Who am I? What am I doing? Am I having a flashback? Am I going insane, right here, right now, in front of my family and half of Monticello? " And I could feel the directors' stupefied wonder at how their very dependable Mary had completely lost her shit.

Somehow, I stumbled back to where I was supposed to be. My old-lady character told me in a fierce threatening whisper to, "Back off, stupid bitch and let me talk!"

And I did.

It ended up okay, but I was humiliated, embarrassed and felt as if I'd let down the whole cast and my directors.

My second character went fine, but still- things were off. And the tone of the whole evening was set. It was like a slipping bike chain. One minute you're peddling along fine and then bang! click-click-click, no power, no traction, no forward motion.

I was late in entrances. I dropped lines. I forgot to take a vital prop onstage. I almost went onstage barefoot.

Oh my honeys, it was not fun. It was not good. It was not what you'd call a stellar night.
After it was all over, instead of wanting to go out and mingle with the crowd, I simply wanted someone to bring me a bottle of rotgut vodka and let me sit in the dark corner and drink until I passed out.

Well. Not really. But you know what I mean.

But no, I had to go out and try to laugh it all off, which I did because hey- it's all Fake Believe, right?

Kathleen, who is the stage manager and the person who is backstage helping me get out of one costume and into another, kept reassuring me and telling me that it was fine, all was well, the audience would never know, everyone was screwing up, etc., etc., etc.
She's so sweet. As were the directors. And my family. And the rest of the cast.
But I knew and we all knew, quite frankly, that I had let everyone down.

Oh. The night had its high points. I got a lot of laughs. One man told me that he had had NO IDEA that there hadn't been five different women playing those parts. His wife said she'd not realized it either. Of course, their combined ages was something like three hundred and twelve, so there you go.

And tonight's another night.

I swear. If I fuck up tonight like I did last night, I am going to calmly ask the audience if they would mind if we started over. Because really- I can do MUCH better.
In fact, I did much better on the first read-through back in December.

And I could blame the wigs and I could blame the fact that my family was there and I couldn't forget that fact and let go and become my characters. And I could blame my inexperience. Whatever. But really, I'm going to simply say that well, it wasn't a great night and tonight will be better.

And if it's not, there's always rotgut vodka.

Thank-you all for coming. Ask for your refund at the door as you leave.

One And One Half Hours Before Curtain Time

I'm a little nervous.

Free Advice

Remember in Thelma and Louise when they robbed a convenience store and Thelma told Louise something like, "I think I might have a knack for this shit."?
That's sort of how I feel about this acting thing. It's funny.
What's not funny is that everything I'm fairly decent at is not anything you can make money at unless you're really, really, REALLY good. Like writing and cooking and gardening. And all of those things are wonderful and they make my life richer than dark chocolate truffles but once, just ONCE in my life, I'd like to earn some money.
I find myself wishing with all of my heart that I'd never gone to nursing school. Now don't get me wrong- I don't think those four years were wasted. I learned a lot of stuff in nursing school. Mainly (and this is sad) that I didn't want to be a nurse and that's the crux of the problem. My husband looks at what nurses make and he's all like, "Girl. What is stopping you?"
And I'm all like, "Uh, the smell of alcohol makes me want to puke, unless it comes in the form of a martini with a blue cheese olive in it?"
Really.
And then he's all like, "But you can do a lot of different things as a nurse," and I'm all like, "Yeah. There are so many fun, frolicking jobs in the nursing profession."
Maybe there are and I need to get off my ass and get one. Or at least one I can stand.
But I have to say that anyone who might be on the receiving end of my nursing skills at this point better have a will made up and notarized because I have no nursing skills. Listen- even putting a bandaid on a boo-boo is not my forte. I'm pretty good at kissing boo-boo's to make them better but I don't think that's standard medical practice.
And besides that, my youngest child, Ms. HoneyLuna, told me once several years ago that even when she was a wee thing she knew that my boo-boo kisses didn't have any healing powers at all but she, being a compassionate and understanding human being, knew I was doing my best and so she'd just allowed me to kiss her boo-boos, even if it didn't help her. She knew it helped me. She's always been so wise.
So what am I saying here? I'm saying if you're young and you're wondering which career path to take in this economy (or any other, to be honest), do your best to consider whether that career is something you can fathom doing for a long, long time. If you dislike being around the sick and the injured, perhaps nursing is not your field, even if it's a safe bet as to a good salary with benefits. Same is true for being a lawyer or a doctor or an actuary. Try to find something that makes your heart leap, just a little bit at least, or at the VERY least, you're slightly interested in.
I'm quite aware that going to work is not a joy for most people. Nor was it meant to be. I suppose. Who knows what work is meant to be besides the earning of your bread? But I don't think that the thought of getting up every day and doing it should make you have to run to the bathroom with various intestinal emergencies.
And maybe, just maybe, you should consider what your talents are and where your joy lies and see if somehow, through education and great effort, you can make those talents work for you while you work to make a living.
As an example, I will offer up this image:


If you look like that and have even the slightest knack for acting, get your ass to Hollywood and go for it.
That's Ms. Moon's advice for the week.
And listen- I'm giving this shit away for FREE!
It's your lucky day.

Sort Of Like Mayberry, Only Real

So I had this great idea for something I was going to write about and I was thinking about it while I was running from one room to the next and by the time I got to the kitchen where I was going to write the idea down so I wouldn't forget, it had completely slipped my mind and it's now residing somewhere in that great trash basket in my brain. I probably needed to flip the squash croquettes on the stove or something and there it went, in between squash croquette numbers three and four.

It's a wonder I remember to get dressed these days. If you can call what I wear clothing.
Anyway, perhaps some day I will remember what it was and then I'll write about it and I assure you, it will be mad genius.

Until then, let's discuss this and that.

First off- the hair thing. Okay, that lady rocks. She listens. She asks questions. Let me just say that by the time she'd finished trimming my hair she said, "You don't want me to blow it dry, do you?"
Now how smart is she?
And then I signed up to come in the next day and get a few highlights to help blend things in and by God, she did those beautifully and probably no one would even notice but it just looks BETTER.
Honestly, she made me very happy.
Happier than any of those dressed-like-a-ho people at the expensive places in Tallahassee. And all of this took place in a built-on-to-a-house little room of beauty in Monticello which looks amazingly like the one Dolly Parton had in Steel Magnolias, only not quite as fancy.

I love Monticello and if they got a Publix there I would probably never, ever go to Tallahassee except to see my children. Except for a Publix, they have it all, including a library, both a Family Dollar Store and a General Dollar Store, a Beauty Supplies And Wireless Store, some nice antique stores, several restaurants including the one in the building where we get our venison sausage made and buy our barbeque sauce and gallberry honey, a small farmer's market, a hardware store, a StarDucks coffee shop (really- StarDucks), a florist, several well-known ghosts, many churches, a dog track, law offices, the county courthouse, a Subway, a CVS, a ginormous Mexican import store, some stunning old homes, several nurseries and of course, the Monticello Opera House.

Which is where I'll be tonight, doing a "preview performance" for the Altrusa Club. I have been approached about joining the Altrusa Club but that would mean breaking several personal vows, one of which is never to join anything with the word "club" in it and also, never being part of something in which the members refer to each other as "sister."
Uh-huh.
They do a lot of good works and I'm sure they have a great time and I know several women who are part of the organization whom I just adore, but I don't think that would be me. For one thing, they drink wine and I can't drink wine. I'd have to bring my own beer.
See what I'm saying?

But I will gladly put on those wigs and perform for them. I'm interested to see how this little production goes with a different audience than the one we've had which has been made up of the directors, the stage manager and the sound guy. They all seem to love it and laugh every time at certain parts of the play and I just hope a wider audience will appreciate our humor as well.
I'm not nervous yet, although I'm sure I will be by the time the lights go up. I am one fourth of this whole thing and I feel like my characters are the comic relief and Lord knows we all need some of that. Our last few rehearsals have gone almost too well. We all know our lines well enough that our characters have taken over and even if someone glitches (okay, that would mainly be me), someone else jumps in and covers and things roll along.

So tonight we do the preview thing and then tomorrow we open and some of my family will be there, and the idea of that does make me nervous. Mainly because when I'm up there on the stage, I forget that I am Ms. Moon, mother of four, wife of one, and just become these other people but if my family is sitting right there in front of me, it's hard to forget. Plus, will they be embarrassed for me? Will they be embarrassed to be related to me? Will it make them squirm when I put the moves on another woman? Will my husband feel weird when I snuggle up to another fella?
Who cares? As Jack, one of our directors said one day at rehearsal, "It's all fake believe."
Ah. Don't you just love that?

Okay. That's enough of that as well as being plenty of this.

Your own personal thespian signing off now.

I have to go get ready for my close-up.

And take out the compost.

To Sonogram Or Not To Sonogram- That's My Question

When my first child was born in 1976, one or two children per every ten thousand born was diagnosed with autism.

Today, one in one hundred and sixty-six children born are diagnosed with autism. That's right. One in one hundred and sixty-six children born are diagnosed with autism.

Now let's be clear- diagnosis is far more accurate than it used to be. There is a huge spectrum of autistic "disorders". And it may be that the rate of diagnosis is not as alarming as it seems, given that the weird kid in your third grade class may have been in one of those autistic spectrums which today would be diagnosed but then was merely labeled odd.

BUT, there is no doubt that it's on the rise and there have been no definite answers as to why the disorder is becoming more and more prevalent.

I've been wondering if there could be a possible link between the now-common use of sonograms in pregnancy and this terrifying trend. I'm not alone in this. Google autism and sonograms and you get something like 65,000 possible hits. There has actually been one small study done on mice by the Yale school of medicine in 2006 which showed that yes, there seemed to be some correlation between the prenatal exposure to ultra-sound waves and autistic-like changes in the mice brains. But it wasn't definitive.

Studies.

We need more studies aimed in this direction I think.
I mean- consider the fact that we are regularly bombarding developing brains and neurological systems with sound waves which cause not only loud sounds within the uterus but also heat. Pregnant women are advised NOT to get overheated in hot tubs and saunas because they know that this can have adverse effects on their developing fetuses. So I'm asking why sonograms are so routinely used in the prenatal care of women? There is no real proof that the use of these routine sonograms contributes to any actual better outcome for the baby at all. I am not talking here about using them judiciously for a diagnostic tool when problems are suspected. I am talking about using them as just a regular part of every pregnant woman's care. We have all gotten to the place where we take for granted that a pregnant woman knows the sex of her child long before birth. And with these new 3-D sonograms, you can tell which side of the family the child takes after while it's still in the womb. "Oh look, Frank, she has your nose! We better start saving for plastic surgery now."

Frankly, I think these sonograms are creepy and weird and almost an invasion of privacy and when done purely to satisfy the parents' curiosity, to give them a prenatal portrait of their child before it is born, is flat damn wrong. Because we don't know what all these sound waves are doing to these babies as they rock and move and swim within their mother's womb.
We know that babies will move away from the sonographer's transducer if possible. This alone seems to indicate that the heat and what one article I read called "jarring vibrations" could be causing discomfort in the child.

I don't know. They do so many things now to pregnant women both prenatally and in labor which no scientific studies have proven to actually produce healthier babies. Here in the US where childbirth is handled in a highly technological way, our infant mortality rate is higher than 36 other countries. This is out of 195, total. Certainly not the worst, by any means, but certainly not the best, either.

I am not suggesting that we go back to the days of old when women squatted in a field and delivered their young (would that it were so simple!) but I am suggesting that we don't have all the answers and I'm also saying- we aren't even asking the right questions.

In the meantime, I am hoping that Lily, who is at the moment interested in a midwife-assisted birth center birth, will avoid getting sonograms if possible.

It is only human and natural that we want to know the sex of our unborn child. It is only human and natural to wonder what that child looks like, to see if he or she has all those fingers and toes and it is so very reassuring to hear and see that little heart beating, those fingers fluttering.
But until we know for sure what the technology which allows us to see all of these things is doing to the child, I don't think we should be using it without a very good reason.

I have no doubt that my grandbaby will be beautiful. I don't need a creepy prenatal picture of him or her to know that. And although it would be convenient to know whether we're buying clothes for a girl or a boy, it is much better to my mind not to mess around with that beautiful child's brain or nervous system.

I am not a doctor, I do not play one on television, but I am someone who wonders. And this is what I'm wondering today. Autism, ADD, ADHD, and a whole lot of other things are showing up in numbers that have never shown up before. And they are showing up as the technology of ultrasound is being used as it never has before. Plain and simple common sense say we should consider these technologies in response to these growing neurological problems.

All I'm saying is, humans simply did not evolve being exposed to sound waves in the uterus and perhaps for a good reason. Could we please explore this possibility?

Wearin' Her Wig Hat And Shades To Match

Let's talk hair.
I'm going to get my hair trimmed today which is significant in that I can't even remember the last time I got my hair trimmed and no, it's not down past my butt although there were times back in the old-hippie days (as opposed to now, the new-hippie days) when it was.
Now it's a few inches past my shoulders and it's...just lying there. No sass, no style.
No shit.
I've never been a hair-do person. Well, I gave it a whirl in Jr. High and high school when the deal was to achieve this cute flip which I attempted through various curling means but none of them worked. The popular girls could do it. No problem. Me? My flip had flattened by the time I got to school. And I didn't have any real Villager shirtdresses either, but that's another topic.
So when the whole long, straight, parted-in-the-middle hair of the hippie became the do to do, I grabbed on because that's what my hair wanted to be anyway. Long, straight, and parted in the middle.
That picture up there is from my high school yearbook and I'm the cutie on the top row on the right. If you look really closely, you can see that there is a tiny rain forest of new hair springing forth from the top of my head and that's because I'd almost died of mono the year before and lost at least half of my hair and when that picture was taken, it was in the process of growing back. Some of it. It never all grew back, which is sad because I had hair that was thick and amazing but it's still thick enough to have survived the menopausal fall-out and leave me enough not to be too distressed over.
Anyway, blah, blah, blah. We all have hair or least a lot of us do, and I think it's probably quite possible that a woman's hair will tell you a great deal about her. Women who are open to hair experimentation when it comes to cut and color are more likely to be women who are open to change.
Obviously, I am not open to change.
When Lily told me that she was going to make me a grandmother, I had this feeling that I should grow my hair out as long as I can and wear it in braids because that's what I did as a young mother and my infants and babies were positively enchanted with those braids and stroked them when they nursed which was sweet. But I'm not going to be nursing Lily's baby (I promise, Lily, I won't!) but still, there's something about the idea of a granny with long braids which enchants me.
Well, I have nine months to get over that idea.
But today I'm going to go get a trim, which is overdue and which I need. And I'll tell the lady the same thing I always tell the people who I go to to cut my hair: Leave it long enough for me to pull back.
Because that's mainly what I do with my hair. I pull it back. Untidily for day-to-day-wear and neatly for going-out-wear.
And I have this play which is opening this week and I wear my own hair for three characters and a wig for two others and last night I actually did get the wigs on my head and well, it was interesting. One is a short, curly granny wig and the other is a brown, sassy, page-boyish wig. They gave me the desired effect which was to change the way I look and to tell you the truth, the way I felt. Which is good. In a play.
And for one of my characters I came up with this outrageous sort of Fundamentalist Mormon lady in the front hairdo and it's ridiculous and I love it and it was perfect and I didn't even have a thing to do with it- my character just came out and said, "Here, give me the damn hairpins."
So I did.
And I realize now it's fun to play around with the hair on our head and it can certainly make us look different if we change it.
But that's the thing- I am who I am, old hippie-hair and all. If I got a short, sassy do I don't think it would be me. And besides that, I'd have to blow dry it or something. Style it. Eck. Not me.
I'm fifty-four years old and I wear the clothes I wear and I wear my hair the way I do and that, my friends, is that. I have fooled around with curls and with color and bangs (bad idea, bad, bad idea) and I've always come back to the way it is. It's growing in gray now and I wish it would just go ahead and do it. There's something so beautiful about a woman with gray hair or white hair. To me, it says that the woman is comfortable with who she is and where she is in life.
Although, one never knows. I might wake up one day and decide to get my hair cut short and dyed red.
I may be an old hippie but I'm still a woman and damn it, sometimes I see women with short hair and it just looks so GOOD. But would it be me? Besides, Mr. Moon would cry and might leave me. That would be bad.
So today I'll tell that lady today to just give it a trim, make sure I can still pull it back, and I'll laugh when she wants to blow dry it.
And then I'll go down to the local wigs-and-mobile-phone-service shop and buy one of those caps you put over your head before you put on a wig and some hair pins so I can feel secure in my dynel hair for the play. Because I need to change myself into five different women on Thursday but let me assure you, Ms. Moon will still be the woman underneath.
With her boring hair. Her graying old hippie hair.
Which suits me best.
For today, at least. Who knows about tomorrow?

Haiku For My Neighbor

Today I stole a
White camellia from your yard.
I don't think you mind.

From Eternity To Here

Nine months seems such a long time to wait for a baby
But in fact, is barely enough time to prepare
And when you think about it,
Nine months is an absurdly short time
For an entire human being to be created
From two cells.
From two cells and then four
And the next thing you know
An entire person
With tooth buds in jaws
And fingers and toes
Not to mention brains and hearts
And eyes that melt hearts
And see into eternity
Because that is where they have come from.
Nine months to make quilts and decide on disposable or cloth
Nine months to read the books, to take the classes
To get the things ready that a baby needs
So much less than you'd think,
But still, choices to be made,
Lives to be rearranged.
And here's a secret from someone who knows:
If you had nine YEARS it wouldn't be enough time
To prepare yourself for a baby.
There is no real preparation.
There is only a scrambling to catch up
To the miracle of the fact
Of the person being grown
In the womb of the woman
Who luckily, will become
A mother who knows many, many things
She never thought she'd know
The second the child is born
And laid into her arms
Those eyes melting hearts
And speaking of eternity
Which is a lot longer than nine months
But is part of the time frame,
Whether we know it or not.

Just Trying To Get A Little Perspective Here

Life seems to be speeding so quickly these days that I can't possibly keep up with it. Just one week ago was the anniversary of Lynn's death and I couldn't quit crying and I couldn't get off the couch. And now, I can barely remember. Not to say I'm completely recovered from the day but simply that it seems to far back in time.

It's been a week.

Speaking of weeks, our play opens in less than a week and oh my darlings, we are not ready. Look- I have something like five or six costume changes in this play. I almost have all my costumes but have no clue yet as to hair. Frankly I would like to wear the same damn thing for every character and just ACT my way around the costume thing- Look- I'm old lady now. Can't you tell from the way I walk, talk, and move? Look- I'm a lesbian now. You can tell by what I'm saying.

Etc.

But no. There will be wigs involved. WIGS!!!! On my own personal head. I never thought I'd see this day.

And the dressing room will be a curtained off area right behind the stage which is right in front of the giant glass windows of the front of the Opera House. I keep asking if they're going to charge extra for seats on the sidewalk.

Besides that, I have a character who has to eat. And talk. And walk. We haven't yet tried this with real food. I make pretend-eating gestures like you do when your child brings you a tasty tea-plate of Play Dough pie. "Mmmm. Very good."

And so forth.

And I have learned in the past few weeks that the best way to get to what the Buddhists call mindlessness is to be in a play. I know these lines. I know them backwards and forwards and yet, inevitably, I'll be up there just doing great and all of a sudden my mind is like a sheer granite cliff that rises into the air and there are no lines written on it. I doubt I could tell you my name at these moments.

Talk about your awkward pauses.

All I can say is thank God they serve alcohol at the Opera House because our motto is The more you drink, the better we are. Amen.

I made soap this week for the first time. I made soup this week for the billionth time. I've made venison jerky. I am making venison jerky as we speak.

I saw our new president inaugurated and oh yes, of course I found out that I'm about to be a grandmother.

I still can't begin to fit my head around that one and will probably be in shock until the child is ready for high school at which point I may begin to grasp the concept.

I've had days where I wanted to crawl into a hole and days where I felt okay. I've spent way too much time in Goodwills looking for costumage and not nearly enough time exercising.

I've let the dogs in and out three thousand, five hundred and forty-seven times. Really. I counted.

I've had hope, I've had joy, I've had despair, I've had panic.

I've grieved and I've celebrated and I've sweat and I've shivered.

I've searched for words and I've had no words.

I have committed sins of both omission and commission and I feel equally guilty about both.

I almost threw a shoe at the TV when Bush was taken away from Washington in a helicopter and wondered why he wasn't taken away in chains. I would have thrown a shoe but it wasn't my TV and it was one of those flatscreen things that probably weighs about four ounces and cost a lot.

I've wondered why we're here on earth and I've listened to a man from Venezuela who worked at the Goodwill, singing a song in Spanish that made my heart soften like a lump of wax over a flame and which seemed to me to be some sort of clue.

I've cheered and I've wailed. I've giggled and I've moaned. I've sighed and I've laughed. I've loved and been loved. I've lit candles for gratefulness and I've lit candles for strength.

In short, a regular week of life here on earth, which frankly, I don't understand at all.
So what the hell? as one of my characters says. I'm trying to keep focused on the light and let the darkness pass as it will. There is certainly plenty of light to focus on.

I hope there is plenty of light in your life too and that your week was fine and fancy, silly and serious, and that we all carry a strong, even if tiny, flame of flickering hope within our hearts.

Because bless them. Our hearts. While they're still beating, we might as well bless them.