Bringing the Misfits Home

Bringing the Misfits Home
A Sentimental Christmas Memory

we embrace every relative
     load up the wagon, pack in tight and leap onto the highway
Staten Island to New Jersey
     chrome steeds try galloping past our Country Squire, but Dad fantasizes he’s lead stallion
from the rear-facing seat, I watch the mesmerizing herd of headlights
      trail farther and farther behind       
no other man (driving 90 miles an hour) will ever replace this depth of faith
     my fierce childhood possession, always

into the cold, dark Jersey night, we arrive home
       the V-8 shudders, the presents cushioning our sleepy heads rattle
       my little sister’s pigtails shift on my shoulder, I shake the bones to wake us up     
Tima’s barking gnaws the sleep crust from our eyes
        while we unpack every last ounce of Italian cheer and clamp our gifts
       beneath all available arms
my brothers, sisters and I march like weary soldiers across the snowy lawn  
       we trudge up the brick stoop and into our warm home
pajamas quickly managed, we mime brushing our teeth

       Mom tucks us in and kisses our cheeks with her smile brighter than winter
I surround myself with stuffed animals, swaddle in blankets
       and stare out my bedroom window to search for the blazing star of my picture books
      (I’ll later learn that I’d been praying to Venus all along)

tomorrow, like clockwork, Emile will stop at the corner of our street
       yell out in his mildly, terrified mailman voice, “WHERE’S TIMA?”
one of us will step into the cold to coax our hefty German shepherd
      away from her favorite place on the front stoop to bring her inside
      and just like that, Christmas is officially over

(Opening image, 1980 – Christmas Tree)
(Image directly above, 1980 – my little brother, Vito, me and our goofy shepherd, Rosie
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find an image of our childhood shepherd, Tima, a much more serious-minded shepherd )

Hope you’re all doing well ❤️
am:)

A Two-headed Calf Once Broke My Heart

For those unfamiliar with the poem The Two-headed Calf, it was written by Laura Gilpin (1950-2007). This force of nature came to me by way of my dear friend, DS Levy.

Ms. Gilpin’s tragic, yet beautiful portrait reminds us of the choice each one of us can make regardless of our circumstance or time on this earth. The Two-headed Calf is taped to my computer where my singular brain absorbs it daily.

When I was a child, my brothers and sisters often visited the Blauvelt Museum (shown below) to gaze at its many taxidermy displays. One animal in particular always tore at my heart — the two-headed calf mounted on the wall above the mantle who looked through me with her six dark limpid eyes. How I wish I knew of Ms. Gilpin’s poem back then.

Hiram Blauvelt was a philanthropist, conservationist, art and animal collector. Ironically, Hiram was a big game hunter, and his kills provided the conservationist displays.

“Through his big game and private wildlife art collections, Hiram hoped to promote the cultural value of wildlife art and the need for conservation of its subjects and their habitats.” “Founded in 1957 as a natural history museum, the Blauvelt Museum introduced students, scouts and youth groups to the need to support wildlife and habitats conservation. Visiting artists created drawings and paintings from close observation of the specimens.”

In searching for the images for this post, I was elated to learn of Blauvelt’s direction. When the ‘hunt-then display to promote conservationism’ philosophy fell out of favor, “…the Board of Directors of the Blauvelt-Demarest Foundation decided that the original objectives would be best achieved by redesigning the museum to feature the works of contemporary wildlife artists, built on the artistic foundation of the Blauvelt’s early collection of works…” And among its many wonderful events, today’s Blauvelt also hosts an art museum residence program.

I Miss Her Too Much—Still

I don’t often show post-stroke images of my beautiful mom. I share the image (below) to share Millie’s joy.

Through three years of relentless pain, Millie smiled and expressed joy. Knowing her was a gift, and her lessons of love🌹 remain with me.

As her Halloween Birthday🎃 arrives, I will smile impossibly wide to pay Millie’s gift forward in a world that needs a hell of a lot more love❤️🌎

I wish you all a fun, fabulous, creative, smiling, and safe👻Happy Halloween!
am:)

(image below taken many harvest moons ago when Millie and Billy were cruisin’ around in their convertible Mustang GT, and my kiddies were not yet costing us college money😁)

Incidentals!

My talented friend, DS Levy, has published her latest creation and it’s absolutely glorious!

The stories in Incidentals are hard hitting with a touch of cloud here and there—but not always. DS Levy’s pages will pull you on a journey that delivers the raw reality and the gut punches only a lifelong and passionate writer can throw.

DS Levy’s fiction has appeared in numerous print and online journals since receiving her M.F.A. in Creative Writing/Fiction, from the Bennington Writing Seminars, in 1997. She has received Pushcart and Best Microfiction nominations and has had her work listed in Wigleaf’s Top 50 several times.

Footnote: Deb and I met while blogging back in 2014. I consider her not only a fantastic writing instructor, but a dear friend who is truly one of the most honest, deep-thinking, animal-loving persons I’ve ever met on this creative life-journey.

I hope you and your families are managing on this crazy spinning planet of ours.

am:)

Why Create in This Woeful World of Ours

“With all the darkness that’s going on the world, you can look at the darkness, just
don’t stare. It will make you crazy. It will make you cross eyed. It will make you
what it is. The solution is to create magic, dance, sing, love. Create environments
where you can create joy. Because you can create joy.” —RuPaul

Occasionally and sometimes often, I remind myself why it is that I create critters and creatures from the comfort of a warm and comfortable studio, sleeping dachshund at my feet, food in the fridge, clean water at my disposal (for now…) while man’s madness blinds him to the fires burning the land, the books, the beauty, the ballot boxes, the bridges, the rainbows…

Reconstruction Writing from My Kitchen Sink


Long ago, I began what I affectionately titled my ‘kitchen-sinking file’
an ever-growing repository to hold my murdered darlings —
the words I couldn’t jettison into the infinite, all-powerful,
sometimes destructive, and often just downright crappy
void of invisible voices

For this first short reconstructed piece, I wanted an environmental theme — Though the merged thoughts are depressing, this was an enjoyable exercise to do. I hope to create a few more of these pieces in the future.

Reconstruction 1:

NATURE VS US
we seem to be fighting against her

only one of us can emerge victorious

I.
while we busy ourselves engraving our legacies into granite
the concrete angel arms waiting for our bones fade away
beneath the ebb and flow of our disbelief

II.
DELETED as we delete the things we detest

III.
beyond the horizon, where the hot lands submerge
he rolls his great mane to rest upon the blackened grass south of the Sahara
      the great space around him vanishing as he sleeps

IV.
slipping and whipping down the burning slide
saddled to a cement slab in sun dried: Any Town,
Earth County
ZipZapped000

V.
obfuscators of earth’s guardianship whose clasped hands grip limitless wealth
      (go ahead, toss those deposit boxes and time capsules into the rising sea)

…and they tossed their wishing well coins

VI.
sometimes our beasts go silent
sometimes our beasts escape
most often they starve to death
despite their accumulated knowledge

VII.
long ago, a pregnant virgin cradled my childhood faith

VIII.
I must remember skating on Papa’s ice pond, and I must always pray for spring

——————————————————————————————-
captured footnote: X——-X
entry: byte.non–f (fire drive destroyed 2025/alt recovery file cap 219) 5Z 7K 24X: date doc//
October of the 6th route//2030
——-
archive:context txtvolume79033cvx130..:///Rational science had been crushed beneath the Mad Believers (4fT99)//and those by their side squatted on the world… during this period, fear and hate thrived and love un-lived
Entry200060002324//eventually The Mad Belief (ipsumibidMXCII1112) was forgotten ///recollected during nature’s self-purge/mankind no longer present… ———- end entry…datapoint…X
recording 54567 —–someone screaming on the floating island
collect years, savaged roots, where are you all???end transmis
/’’’tend the children well/’’’’’ they begged, sow seeds, plant saplings
you there – apologize for unsalvageable soil. unusable water
earth’s clock solar-powered
no backup
no backward
angels’ concrete dissolved

Hi there,
How I wish there was more love flooding the world rather than tidal waves.
Nonetheless, I’ve anchored the drywall in warm hues.
(Blue DragonUmp latex satin too depressing)
Here’s a brush of autumn color for your chilled porch.

artwork created a few years back, updated recently (snake & squirrel created with Prisma & watercolor marker, snake background created with Canva/fun program:))

A Harvest Festival

Since the annual UFO Fair this past June, I’ve turned myself into a mad monster merchant selling all measure of cryptid ilk. Yup, I designed prints, magnets, stickers, cards with mugs and totes waiting beneath Mothman’s wings. As a participating vendor at the Alien Fair, I’d passed up several opportunities to sell original artwork which I’d been using expressly as background decor (I’ve always had a difficult time parting with my original art). For this harvest festival, I turned some of my original paintings into 11 x 14 prints. Well, weeks of spending money to make money finally arrived on October 16 and it did not disappoint.

My monetary goal at these events has been, at the very least, to make the vendor fee back. I’ve been pleasantly surprised to have leapt a few monsterish bounds beyond my goal each time. More importantly, I’ve overcome my trepidation of being on the other side of the vendor experience. I remember well the feeling of ‘shame’ when passing by merchants, some alone beneath their canopies, all those years ago at the flea markets and fairs when I wasn’t interested in shopping their wares.

No matter how many calendars or daily planners we mark off, we never cease learning about ourselves. I never imagined that after all those visits to outdoor flea markets, festivals and fairs with my husband and children, that I’d become a seasonal vendor who can handle getting sheepishly or brazenly passed by when my creative work isn’t appreciated or wanted. Though I’ll never understand why some people refuse to find a soft spot for critters with massive fangs, killer claws and bloodlust in their veins;), I’ll continue merrily along my quest of meeting festival folks and chatting up creatures or the weather or the strange light fair-goers might have seen that disappeared into an inky night sky.

When the world gets cold, our experiences and memories are often the things that warm us with their Bigfoot feet and Yeti breath.

I hope you are all doing well.

xo
am

P.S. I must thank my husband, Keith, who sacrifices his only day off during the week for these events. He is also kind (and wise enough) to buy his insane wife morning ‘pre-vending’ bloody marys:)

Millie’s Rainbow

This post was inspired by a ‘new’ image.

It’s a wonderful gift to receive an image you’ve never seen before of a person you’ll not see again (in this version of life). My mom’s cousin had recently sent me a batch of family photos, a few of the images I’d not seen before – what a treasure to see my mom’s pearlescent smile in a ‘new’ way. I merged Millie’s image into the rainbow photo shown.

The rainbow happened on a most horrible day — a day not blackened by the dark weather but by my words. It was the day I told my sweet mother I was sending her to a nursing home. And that beautiful woman had the gall to smile, to tell me she understood and that everything would be okay.

The weight of my heart forced my tears forward like the storm. Then not long afterward, the rain stopped, the storm clouds moved on their way, and there outside, arcing over my house, was the most complete and perfect rainbow I’d ever seen. It was Millie’s Rainbow.

Thank you,
AnnMarie❤️

The Steady Blue Firmament

vito fbi copy 3
Dear Dad,

Your eyes flashed the colors of a summer storm.
Thunder rolled along the pink of your mouth.
Your shadow filled our home whether you were with it or not.
All this hurricane in one man.

But as terrifying as the clouds of my childhood could be at times, you were the sky.
How I miss the steady blue firmament of your presence in my life.
Today, somewhere out there in the nebula, you’ve turned 92 years old.

Happy Birthday, Dad.

Love,
AnnMarie

Where Beauty Is Easy

When in New Mexico, simply aim your camera anywhere and the breathtaking sky does the rest.
new mexico

My husband, son and I spent a glorious week in New Mexico. My wonderful friend, D, who lives in Santa Fe, was a marvelous cook and an amazing hostess.

We enjoyed the heated outdoor pool, went on a pilgrimage to the Aztec Ruins, visited the galleries on Canyon Road, purchased handmade items from local artists, put our feet in the pristine San Juan River…and of course, we ate too much:)

Alas, all good things must come to a landing —

home again

If you haven’t visited New Mexico, do try and get there – it truly is the Land of Enchantment.

Thank you for stopping by,
AnnMarie:)