The C word

I've been reluctant to write about this.

Maybe because that would make it real or because it's just too damn scary. I have low grade, beginning stages of cervical cancer. I was free and clear for the last year and in the last month it's reared it's ugly little head again.

I'm not scared of leaving this body. I fear the hurt it would bring the people I love but I have no fear for myself. But I don't think that's really an option for me with this. It's early and highly monitored. I do fear of falling so far into debt that I can't crawl out. That I won't be able to buy my next house. That I couldn't get a loan for my next business. That if I get married, I would hurt my husbands credit.

I am still on COBRA but only until September then I'm on my own. It's so expensive that I've been selling some clothes and other household items to collect enough for the monthly payment. It's at these moments when I'm writing out the checks to my old boss, that prick, that I consider crazy thing.

Like when I drive past the local strip joint, I do consider it for half a moment. Making a thousand dollars on a Saturday night... that would pay off my medical lab bills and then some... I know why desperate women get married. I know why they sell their hair and blood. But that's not me. Not yet at least.

But it does make me think about people and the choices they make. The girl sucking on the stripper pole, whores on the corner, pushers, the desperate people out there. Maybe they didn't have a choice. Work at McDonalds for 7.50 an hour and still can't make rent or hit the street and feed yourself and pay rent and heat your place.

It's all a lesson in being less judgmental on my part. It's a lesson I needed to learn. And here I am, humble, broke and a better person. And happier.

A little V-day poem...

This boy, so faint in his intention, has black toes and bloody heart soaked in fed fire, hidden love.
He bothers to pluck his strings.

Fluorescent and incandescent, tearful and beautiful, fluttering bodies fill his lines, cleft between the head and his soul, trembling with what she said but no time to tell her.

And bated breath, turn sigh, non-truth to lie, he could keep riding and learn to get by. Electric eyes and a silver mind and tongue, neon bright.

This boy, his intention clearer, has black toes and bloody heart. He's filled with fire but spilling love, plucking her strings boldly. Standing up and facing right, they all feel it radiating, the light, the heat , the touch and the release.

Followed home, laying it down, all in one, the one is all and everything.

A Decision

There's a single lamppost lit outside on the street below my window.

He's been asleep for about an hour. He didn't hear me get up. Things are so uncertain now. I feel that at any moment that room may turn upside down or perhaps the floor may start to crumble or swivel around, like in my nightmares. But I remain right side up and on solid ground for now.

Last month, I was sick with a terrible fever. Alone, 10 stories above the so-called solid ground, the walls moved, the rugs swam around the floor and the sheets dripped onto the floor, I walked around my home, only to open my eyes to realize I was still in bed, all things stationary. I heard my grandmother call my name in the dark. In that second, jerked back to the present, lying in bed sweating and barely breathing, I was gripped by paralyzing fear. Not that my Granny was speaking to me across the gauze of another plane, but that I was truly alone up there.

Tonight, the lamp and the sleeping man, the one who I feel so much for, keeps the alone away. Though things may crumble beneath my feet, I know he will try to catch me and the single street lamp will light my way. And in this moment, where I stand naked in front of this window, soft breathing behind me, this blue room that I helped paint, I turn to him. My silhouette will keep him company as he dreams of blue skies he won't remember tomorrow. I know with more resolution than I have ever felt in my limited years that though I am followed, tracked by uncertainty and uneven ground, I am sure of this man. I am sure he is a good man, honest to a fault and that his love for me is true and layered. His love, his heart is something no other man has ever given me. No other man has meant more to me, loved me like he does and for this, I have given him my whole heart, my trust, my everything. He is it for me. Of this, I am certain.

I lay down next to him as the clock downstairs chimes 3am.

I fear that it will all be taken away from me so I drink in every happy moment, like this one. But then I relax, hold him close and allow the fear to siphon away, for now, and drift off to sleep, where I can dream of blue skies and us and wake up with those memories.

Come over to the dark side... we have cake.

Things are kind of bleak.

I'm in some kind of funk lately. My joblessness has affected me more than I thought it ever would. I'm stuck in daydreams and thoughts of running away from my current responsibilities and finding a life. Running away with the circus. Teaching surfing lesson to tourists on the south shore.

I just feel like my life was going so well. I bought my beautiful house, I met the man of my dreams, I was young and beautiful with a great job and a well mannered cat. And it all crumbled into the fire within months. (well, except my fella... he just keeps getting better and better)

I am overcome by feelings of hopelessness and despair at times. (Geez, I sound like one of those prescription commercials...) I know it's just a phase, a dark shadow that will be overrun by the sun soon enough. But still...

I need something, I just don't know what it is.

ps - The cake is a lie.

Corporate Daydream

I had a dream.

I daydream of being on a carousel, going round and round as the sunshine blinks at me. I’m all alone and the music is soft and old fashioned. I close my eyes and I wake up in a field. It’s warm and cotton floats in the air.

The wild flowers carpet the field that just goes on and on. I walk and walk. I come across fruit trees that turn into a forest. Nut trees, avocados, pineapple patches. The light grows dimmer and speckled on the forest flower and the air cools. I gather baskets full of almonds, oranges, vanilla beans, chocolate bars, bowls of noodles with chopsticks, and ice cream cones. The baskets are full but not heavy. The deer don’t mind me at all.

The forest ends and the sun is born again, warming my skin, keeping the tamales hot in the leather pouch they’re in. This new valley past the trees is surrounded by snow capped mountains miles out in either direction, creating a fortress, a castle that was all mine, no one could enter. As I continue to walk with my baskets between the giant arms of either range, I can see a thin pillar of smoke rising straight up into the calm blue sky. As I move closer, I see a stone stacked cabin with two smoke stacks and a small garden off to the right. I open the gate to the courtyard and put my baskets down on the front step. I almost knock on the door when I see a note tacked in front of the knocker. “Welcome. It’s yours. Take good care of us.” I enter slowly.

There is a large overstuffed sofa by the crackling fire place, where three large pillows are placed on the floor. There is a bookshelf full of books, new and old, and little curiosities tucked throughout. A record cabinet sets across from the fireplace, full of different music from jazz to pop. The kitchen is small and warm, a breeze moving through the window over the sink. I put my fruit and ice cream away in the ice box and take my leather pouch of tamales to the fire, take “Peter Pan” off the shelf and curl up on the pillows. The wind starts to grow colder and I close the windows and venture upstairs. There is a curtain in the single room to hide the soaking tub and changing area. The bed has two down comforters and six pillows. I light the fire in the room, turn the water on in the tub and lay my tired body into the steamy water that goes up to my neck. As I dry off and slip into my long white pajama gown, it begins to snow in the valley.

As I drift off, Peter flying in soft circles above the house keeping guard, I know that it’s possible that I won’t wake up here in the morning but that it was worth the risk.