1 FLOWER
Posted by Hello

so i suppose that asking "who reads me?" was a declaration that i was up to learning the truth. two great guys read me, and admit it in public. johnnie walker, he's either spinning some real cool fiction or living the life that books are made of. and nico of negative subspace, who just writes feelings in a wonderfully personal yet anonymous way, and who was gone for awhile and i'm really glad he's back.

bekah
Posted by Hello

i had to claw nearly beg and virtually quit my job to get a pittance. is this the story of the rest of my life? i think not. it is saturday night i have driven all day in the totaled out volvo with metal showing in the front tires the hood held down by a coat hanger and somewhere around 330,000 original miles. and i bitched and bitched about the traffic [kee RyST it was bad, for a saturday], then glory explained it all with one word: "christmas."

ain't doing that shit this year. i have permission, and a date in vegas with my 21-year-old son, a rendezvous we've been planning for maybe 10, maybe 13 years...he's all the gamer his mother is i believe, and all the scrooge for the holiday that has traditionally been the biggest most important blah blah. etcetera.

i remember fondly the year his older brother and sister tore through their presents without waiting for me to wake up...i'd been up until probably 5 am or so and swear to gawd they musta waited for the first snore to attack...i nearly cried, that year. i think it was my first as a newly single mother and i had - typically - gone overboard making sure there were many presents. plenty from santa plenty from mom...

i slept and woke up in the living room to find it trashed. those greedy kids, john and bekah, had not WAITED! the rule was you get the stocking as soon as you wake up but everything else unless of course it is not wrapped up, you wait until we are all up and together and one person plays santa and we wait and watch as others open their presents, ooh ahh and then only then on to the next...but they had not waited! i'd made up an elaborate goose chase to lead john to his surfboard...it was in the living room, the tinfoil scattered carelessly about. i think this was the year bekah got a big old barbie house and the entire heart family. and by the time i opened my eyes this was all old news to them.

how do i describe the looks of my two oldest children, at the time probably 11 and 7 years old respectively, their unstoppable greed, their undeniable glee, their obvious guilt? they pretended not to know the rules but they knew the rules.

man i almost cried and sure as shit did make sure they understood that my joy at christmas was partaking of their joy, which i could not do while sleeping. a couple of hours later, my little boy andy, all of four years old at the time [the one kid who never did find it difficult to sleep at christmas], opened up his bedroom door, saw the scooter standing in front of the tree, and sprinted toward it saying, "He CAME!" and so he did. redeemed christmas that is, andy did, that infamous year.

nowadays it's all infected with the loss the missing her the emptiness where she's supposed to be. this year - maybe from here on out, maybe only this one year - i'm blowing it off.

i have permission. amen

"She was one of those rarely gifted beings who cannot look, or speak or even stir, without waking up (and satisfying) some vague longing that lies dormant in the hearts of most of us."
Posted by Hello
- posted by barbara @ 12/11/2004 10:18:00 PM