(Above, a recent sketch I did of my dear friend, DS Levy. My reference was a photo taken when the amazingly talented writer known as little Deb had a typewriter already growing in her heart)

Man, it has been a long time since I’ve posted. Like you all, I’m juggling coffee mugs attempting to make a Venetian decanter. I’ve been doing quite a bit of writing and ‘arting’ offline. ‘Tis difficult wanting to do it all with the damn clock dictating the days.

I do hope you, your families and friends are doing okay.

Here’s a piece I wrote sometime ago while sipping coffee in the kitchen of my previous home:)

The Lollipop Vanishes

The cold isn’t done yet. It remains bluster-blue out there. Steam from my morning coffee marinates my face while a pen hanging from the calendar on my pantry door doodles pictograms. The wind spirits are still dancing. Shouldn’t have cracked the kitchen sliders open so early. Perhaps the swinging pen is scrawling a message from beyond, should I pray or wipe the door down?  

Time flips on its head whenever clouds sail by that fast. Between sips of luke warm coffee, I remember me as a little girl in brown polyester, a tomboy with a pageboy, and a half-shirted party girl. Young woman with a career, an apartment, a sports car, a motorcycle.

As a lefty, I never learned biker right-hand turns. The bike went away. I totaled my car. The car went away. I bought another car. Got married. We moved from New Jersey to New York. We had children. Moved into a bigger house. Our large dog died. We got another dog. Plus a smaller dog for child anxiety. My children earned degrees.

Our family had a bad eleven weeks that killed my father and mother-in-law and gave my mother a massive stroke. My mother died three years later. I don’t remember being her caregiver. My children moved into their new lives. We downsized into a new “old” house. My husband’s hair turned grey. My older relatives are nearly done dying. A box of Clairol waits in the wings for me.

In one of my book clubs, I’m the oldest, in the other, I’m the youngest. I worry the elder members will pass on before reading the next book selection.

The lollipop vanishes, and the goddamn stick can beat you into the ground if you let it.

Look out there, the gray is fading to light purple. How lovely. That’s something I haven’t seen in a while.


am:)