Just Don't Kiss Me Goodnight

When I was little, maybe about 5 or 6, I was pretty scared of Santa Claus. Wonderful though he was, the thought of a big man entering our home in the wee hours of the morning, tip toeing across the wooden floors just down the hall from where I slept, was a bit too much.

I remember asking my parents to, in the nicest possible way, let Santa know that there was no need for him to enter my bedroom for a goodnight kiss. In fact, there was really no reason for him to come into my room at all, as most of his business ought to be taken care of way out there by the Christmas tree.

Christmas Eve was a sleepless night. I always heard noises out there, and feared that if he knew I were awake he would pass right over this house and go right on to the neighbor's. Everyone knows that Santa only comes when you are asleep.

At the faintest glimpse of light, I would rush into my brother's room to discuss things of the utmost importance. "Do you think he came?", I would ask. "Do you think we can look?" he would respond. We would then sneak down the hallway and steal the quickest glance in the direction of the tree. In the earliest morning light, underneath the glittering tree, the shapes of wonderful things had appeared. Something pink and purple with wheels, a box-like thing that could be the dollhouse I had asked for, some kind of dark tower shape that could just be the Skeletor Castle Grey Skull that my brother had been dreaming of.

It was the unspoken rule, however, that we could only look for half a second before waking Mom and Dad. When we had dragged them out of bed, and successfully ushered them towards the living room, Christmas had officially arrived.

There were even boot prints in the soot around the fireplace. There was nothing but a nibbled carrot stub and cookie crumbs on the plate we had set out. There was always a humorous letter.

We would sort the presents and open them one at a time, working our way right down to the stockings, a tradition we continue to this day. The day I stopped believing in Santa wasn't monumental. But the day my brother stopped believing was very sad for me.

To believe in Santa, what is that exactly? A sense of wonder, a sort of spirituality, a leap of faith, and......

Blessed

on Thanksgiving morning.

Tonight I needed some Pablo Nerudo.

Sonnet XVII

I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving

but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.

- Pablo Neruda

Team

An athlete can spot an athlete, and the day I met Lisa I knew that she was one. In fact, I knew she was a basketball player. She carried herself like a point guard. A leader, a pressure player, I inferred. So while she hardly touched a ball in the four years of college that followed, that initial impression persisted.

When I think of Lisa's college experience I remember someone who was fighting some demons, doing some real soul searching. That, and our silly antics and shenanigans.

By about Junior year she seemed to have pulled herself out of something. She returned to campus with a shaved head, a gesture of solidarity to a friend from camp.

Then Adam arrived. Here's where life seemed to get wonderfully, extraordinarily better. She was one of my first friends to wed. They were married in an intimate chapel on the cape, by Adam's own father. All around them, loved ones shed tears of joy.

Then Grace came. With the child came this very state.

So while we gathered to walk and run for Team Elizabeth, to raise money for cancer research in honor of Lisa and so many others, I've written here about her, not It.

As Lisa walked ahead of the enormous group of friends who had come together in her support, I realized that it's truly the gift of a point guard to instinctively move a team forward in the face of the unknown.

Three

Unwittingly from a pretty pot
I'd poured a night of stirring, steeping
but sleeping not

Inhabitting now night's draining cup
I lurk lukewarm at bottom
soaking stale stuff up

And right back through those pores I bleed
and color dawn with too much me.
It tastes of rust this cup of tea.

Megan Bird

She sang at the nursery window
and sent thought to me of Beth.
Call her, She needs you please, it read.
When he sleeps, I said.
She pushed and pecked at cracks
and I feared the pane might let.
Is that you?
i asked
(for we had never met)

Her perfect perch said yes.
Then Little Baby slept.

so I crept to a room
where whispery taps resumed,
and the gentle shadows of a hopping bird
were present too.

Is that you?
i begged.
Her feathery breath said yes.
So I reached out to Beth.

For when she left her bed,
she Left
to fetch
me
and the rest.

"People tell you who they are, but we ignore it because we want them to be who WE want them to be."




Another blogger posted this quote and it stuck in my head. Although, I'm not sure we "ignore" it. I think perhaps we accept, then forget. Or we see evidence to the contrary, and so we hope.

In the beginning, though, we accept.

It's a different kind of draft
when
two thousand seven hundred forty
souls
are chosen
Unwilling,
Unknowing,
to fight
and die,
by
and
against
an enemy.
But soldiers they are still.

Circles

'Member what those Big Hands felt like under your armpits as they slowly lowered you until there was a lapping Cold over toes and it got inside somehow and shivered high into your bare shoulders that pulled up as the breeze wisked by.

'Member when your jello legs ran over sinky suction sand towards those Big Blue Waves and all of a sudden They were pulling at your feet and down! you went on your bottom but the Hand had not let go, only changed a sandy grip around your wrist and there was an "Up we Go!" and a change of clothes.

'Member when you were allowed to go up to your waist, and when tired of jumping waves you dug your fingers into the water's edge to catch Fiddlers as they dug against the tide, digging for their lives, and they scrambled in your hand searching for sand until you dropped them and ran to your big colorful towel and peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Remember when stepping out of your shorts and pulling off your shirt was a big moment, how you ran into the water, not ready yet, so that no one had time to comment on how grown up you now were, how you now walked the beach and wished that a boy would and wouldn't appear, and how the music in your ears made you feel like the star of a very beautiful movie that everyone was watching.

Somehow with his every first I remember my own and all that followed, all at once.

Rowen, Tree

hey Tree
so much bigger than
me
what have you known
lemme see

Merge

I had four different blogs. A work blog, a creative writing blog, a family blog, and a journal blog, each an outlet for the different parts of me. In an effort to bring these me's together I've decided to try to post everything in one place. You would be surprised how much courage it takes to post a poem or story to be read by people you actually have a relationship with. Here's to putting oneself out there now and then. When one has time.

At this hour
the Soul of the earth
shall gather what is Hers,
and rock them to their rest.
Shifting toe tip to toe tip,
rocking hips,
She offers sleep in sips
and stays until they sleep.
They sleep and still she sways,
cradling the day
as mother's tend to do.

Eve