good-bye, in not so many words.

I was shoeless
feet sinking into the soft earth
on the side of the highway

the weeds and old McDonald's cups
long burnt strips of rubber
and browned cigarette butts

illuminated and faintly glowing
in the flickering yellow headlights
the car hummed as the fan kicked on

the song that had been playing
that had just began when THIS whole thing started
finally came to an end

with a few twangy guitar rifts
and the final lonely lyrics
that were the only words

the only words between us
as we clutched fists
and glared into each other's eyes

I opened my mouth
to shout out all of the recriminations
you truly deserved (you know you did)

but a car sped past
a blur of shouted insinuations
squealing tires

drowning out my words
even those final three
spoken with an aching shame and honesty

then you smiled
that one dimple in your left cheek
flicked out at me

I think I had to smile in return
that one dimple in my right check
winked back at you

we dropped our grip
stepped apart
and I haven't really seen you since.

point in case.

pause.

My car got too hot, the road got too long,
I needed to get away from old mixed CDs and piles of paperwork,
somewhere 60 miles north of Memphis.

I parked onthe crumbling shoulder,
climbed the incline thorugh the wiast high grass
and nodding summer heavy heads of lazy susans

and seated myself on the rain moist ground.
Kicked off my soft brown boots
passed down from an aunt when I was just a teen

and she was still alive,
flexed my toes in coarse grass,
propped myself on my elbows.

A quick flirty breeze caught my long hair
worked it into tangles over my head,
around my face,

snarled halo lifting and dropping with the wind.
I tilted my face to the bleary October sun
to watch a bright yellow cropduster

swoop over the interstate,
buzzing over the drone of the I-55 traffic
and the chatter of the cicadas in the high weeds around me.

We, the insects and I,
watched the clouds mass and gather
in the muddied sky over our heads.

I plucked a slender blade of yellowed grass
and chewed it as I thought about
where I should be going

and where I wanted to be going instead.
Cocked my head to listen to fingers of music
snatched from the open windows of bright red

and blue big rigs streaming past;
I created my own love songs from the snippets heard
and those I created to fill in the blanks.

I wish I had a voice,
wish I could sing a song with our/my name in it -
but my voice is no good and my words have failed me.

Even as I think this my car is cooling,
the day is passing,
I pick myself up to go, irresolute,

Far away from all of this
someone may be thinking about me
or someone else has entirely forgotten about me and .....

they are all far away
and today is today.
I wave to the sunshine hued plane,

drop my blade of grass to the ground with his brothers,
and climb back in to my dusty red car,
pointing it north once again.

this sorta made my day, thought I should share

sad but true

self-portrait challenge: portals

The September theme for Self-Portrait Challenge is "Portals". I haven't joined in for some time - not so much because I didn't want to as much as a total lack of time to do anything creative these days (boooo).

So, when this weekend presented itself with ample time for picture taking and I found myself wandering through a dew bejeweled meadow in the early a.m. hours with nary a soul in sight save for my faithful mutts - well, you know me. It meant only one thing: photo op!

I've been thinking about the theme though and what it meant to me. Portals; doors, windows, etc, are our entry and exit into different areas and new buildings, they are our glimpse into another world, and our exit from the one that we've known. I grew up in farm country and I've moved ...into farm country. I've lived in a city only briefly in my twenty-eight-years and didn't enjoy it one bit. As I get older, however, I find myself yearning for a more urban area. I want the shows, the music, the people, the bustle. But am I completely ready to give up my corn fed, four wheelin', gun weilding life completely? I'm not sure. I suppose I'll find out in a few months when I "graduate" from the manager training program and am given a store of my own. I'll have to up and move again, which we all know I don't handle well - but maybe this time I'll land somewhere that fits me just right. One can only hope.

As for your Qs

Punani asks:

What is your favorite flavor of ice cream? My absolute favorite flavor is mint chocolate chip, plain ole strawberry is a close second.

My favorite part of summer is that first hand dipped cone. MMM.

What is the best thing that happened to you today? Today has actually been a pretty wonderful day! We went out to billiam's dad's cabin to spend the night so I woke up early and took a hike down to the river, just me and a horde of mutts. It was absolutely beautiful out with that first chill of fall in the air and absolute silence except for the splashing of the girls in the river water. I sat on the bank and thought about everything and nothing all at once and wished that the moment could stretch on and on.


Of all your sweet dresses, which is your favorite? Oh this is a hard one. I've actually been trying to not buy as many *eek* so I've been revisiting some favorites. Among them:



I have a few others that I adore but haven't really taken pictures of them yet. Among them a fifties prom dress and a sweet little chiffon one. Pictures of those. Soon. I promise.


For-Tart asks:
1. Is insanity just "not following the customs of your society" or is insanity something universal in all cultures? I believe Albert Einstein said it best when he said, "insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results". While I don't think any one-liner could possibly explain mental disesase, I suppose from my personal experience with it that I'd have to agree with Einstein. And is it univeral in all cultures? I'd think so. People may consider someone insane for eating another person where that may be culuturally accepted among some tribes. There are always extremes to contradict theories. What I refer to though would be the more recognizable aspects of mental illness such as fatigue with depression and a schiphrenic hearing voices.

2. Is "home" a physical place or an abstract idea? Can I sound wishy washy and go with BOTH? I believe that home CAN be a physical place once it is carefully nested with the possessions you love and the ones you need.


3. Are you searching for love? Yes. Who isn't?
Do I think I've found IT, the absolute defination of that word? No I don't bleieve so. I'm still looking for love in the fullest sense of the word.

(more to come)