So I'm driving out of the parking lot of my apartment complex, and this little grayed old man is carrying a plastic grocery bag filled with water. He's wearing those tan starched pleated trousers and the white short sleeve dress shirt consistent with an 80-something retiree that still cares to feel like he's dressing to go out and work each day. He stiffs on over to a little green bush-tree and shakes out his bag of water carefully and deliberately onto the leaves of the tree. He's grinning in that I'm-old-and-done-with-this-life's-drama-and-am-quite-contentedly-waiting-to-pass-on kind of way. No, he doesn't own the land where the little tree's roots catch the dirt on the front lawn of his rented home. No, he hasn't been hired by the management to keep the grounds, nor has he been given proper tools and accessories to do so. He's just doing his little part to make his little place in the world a nice place to be. Yes sir, nice to meet you.

Rockets glared red in the sky outside my balcony tonight. The Franklin Covey baseball field had their last firework show of the season. Our senses are kinda brilliant, no? Linking us to slightly forgotten memories ...What so proudly we hailed: on a high school auditorium's stage in Nakuru, 40 good friends and I stood in a line and signed and sang "The Star Spangled Banner" in unison as our part of an annual talent show there; on a July 4th or maybe a few of them in past years, my sisters and I belted out the same tune in a 4-part harmony that we claim as our trademark-able tradition--SheDaisy's got nothin' on these girls! Sigh. Oh say can you see?

"No teacher to follow/No prophet to tell me how/But I know what I want/I know what I want now/"

Lisa Loeb. Brilliant, yes?

Sometimes I find myself standing in a trench that's pretty deep, but if I stand up on tiptoes I can peek out the top, and there's a motioning world of green life and yellow laughter and beautiful blooming options waving me to get up and join the party. I slump back in, bury my head into my palms and sob at this, my misfortune, being held in this pit, and I want what's up there, and damnit, this step-stool I hunch down on to rest my aching back is not a great place to sit. Poor me!

I've always known going to church is the right thing to do. Always. That's just how it works. I grew up with five sisters and a mom and dad who just went to church together, always on the second from the front row, always "powdered, pressed, and curled." Church was at nine a.m. (yeah, I know.) most of my life, and I despised that! I was so bitter about that, especially because our house woke up 3 hours before so we could be ready. It works out in retrospect--I mean, really, how else do you have time for six girls sharing a bathroom and hair dryers and curlings irons--but I HATED it. My dad would wake us up by coming in to our room maybe ten minutes before 6 and sing a hymn: "Welcome Welcome Sabbath Morning" (if you don't know that one I can hook you up), while bouncing the bed with his foot. A-nnoy-ing. I'd kick around and grumble and he'd leave for five minutes or so, allowing me a bit more blissful sleep. The next time he'd come in he'd still be pleasant and sing, then he'd say "It's time" in a serious tone. I'd go back to sleep, and then the third time there was no more singing. It was "Let's go; get up" and he'd clap his hands really loud. More grumbling and a bit of cursing in my head, but I'd get up and start the powder-press-curling process.

Going back to church: hard. After almost two years. Dad, where are you--come sing to me.

I started to go through an old box of my writing that I put away for awhile. Sometimes when I write I get really overwhelmed because it takes a lot of energy for me--I'm not a natural, to be sure. Found some poems from a poetry workshopping class I took at the U. Here's one of my favorites.

drive

 

Blue clouds crowd the sky. In terms of addiction,

I am pacified by twelve clicks of coke

 

sans sugar. I check every lock before sleep.

Snow clots in mud; I am entirely

 

Sensitive—a fine specimen of weak-assed narcissism:

commence this tempest.

 

I like to run, when I’m done, and collapse is merited—

I cannot tell a lie (though a slight half-

 

truth never hurt anyone). Chill grips marrow

with vengeance. I belong

 

to the above-average bone structure club—the shower-

time karaoke queen.

 

Static scratches up my neck:

 

the sun is melting…

 

 

ALHotheins