Her hands

Her hands are cracked and the severely cracked spots bleed. Her skin is beyond dry. We cover the skin with olive oil, we cover it with Dream Cream, a product by LUSH made for super dry skin. Her whole body is chapped, daily she is slathered. She feels pain when she walks. I keep gloves on her once I put the lotion on.

Now I see its going to get colder this week. I have the humidifiers and vaporizers going.

I can't help but blame her vegetarian diet. Her Dad is a vegetarian. My Moms hands get cracked but she cleans houses. A person needs Omega oils. Fish is delish!

I will search the internet, ask the vitamin guy at the local granola store, because there are answers to this.

What about your friends?
There are answers to all questions, whether we want to know the truth or not. I am unhappy with where I live, so I want to move. I am unhappy with my lack of local friends, I want to settle in another liberal little town and find people like me. Creative Moms who like music and tattoos and love their kids more then anything.


My closest friend moved when she got married. I have reconnected with high school chums but its been 20 years. What to say? I had a dear friend who simply stopped being a part of my life. We had all kinds of adventures. I don't blame her so much, I think sometimes people come into our lives for a reason. She needed some help getting out of her shell and there I was. We met at a writing group and then spent a year. She had recently divorced and I was going through the same. We wrote and laughed and cried.

The last time I saw her was after my shoulder operation. We went out for Indian food. She had bought a new car and drove us. I was glad she had gotten rid of her mom mobile. She was heavily into her massage therapy classes, surrounded by other women going through the same thing. I asked her if I was being replaced and she said No. It was all very light. She hugged me when we parted.

When my house was on fire, she came over. I sat in my neighbors house with her and she held my hand. We held hands when it got bad, I was always grateful for her hand in mine.

I missed her more then a lover, she was a sister. She straight laced with her sweater vest. She told me often that her parents had always told her never to trust anyone outside the family. She is from Kansas if it matters. I loved her and she loved me, we had good times.

There is a neighbor who is a bit younger then me with tattoos and likes music. She lets her child run wild in a dangerous manner. I see him dressed in thin clothes as the winter wind blows through to his young skin. He seems to get himself ready every morning and take himself home. He is 7. His Dad is a total pothead hippie who didn't comprehend why I would be concerned that his child was mouth kissing the friend of my child who was visiting.

Hey OOOO.

You keep on Sir, keep on getting high.

Whats alot of pot to someone who is home caring for his son? The kid would show up daily for company and snacks this Summer.

Back to friends and my lack of them.

I am a loner. I have few friends but those who are my friends, I've got their back. Body to bury? Shoulder to cry on, money to lend, bars to attend? I am there.

I have a myriad of acquaintances. You can't help but knowing people when you have elementary aged children. Funnily enough, it is my daughters Father who does most of the socializing. I plan and organize.

I will find community in my church, Universalist Unitarians are social people, who sincerely want to help. The womens group looks good, its the first time walking in that causes me such grief. I will go out to coffee shops.

The strangers I see in stores who I converse with do not find me hideous or malformed emotionally. I can shoot the breeze, give sincere compliments and my listening skills are phenomenal. The main thing is, actually leaving my house.

I like to do things by my lonesome. I go out to eat, go to movies, that is how I am. There is no insecurity there. I am self sufficient, but yes, I require community.

There is lots of unconditional love to give and receive. I welcome women folk, men folk, merfolk into my life. I'll apologize in advance for preferring email as my primary form of communication, texting is okay. The phone I look at with great suspicion.

Quirky and witty! I think you can only be eccentric if you are rich.

Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall, all you've got to do is call - and I'll be there, see you again, you've got a friend.

Love,

Rose

Strive

An email got me thinking about greatness.

I genuinely feel that everyone should strive for greatness, whatever their definition of greatness is. If I gave time to the idea that I was destined to be just like everyone else, I would not want to live. I refuse to accept that this is all there is. I am open and ready for new adventures. Positive growth experiences. I have had a dose of the horror, now I am ready for the pleasure. I require pleasure in all my senses.

I have to step it up, step out, make sweeping changes. Tonight, this darkness is the longest of the year. I will not dwell on the past, 2009 is just about over. Focus on the here and now, make your own greatness.

There is this spark in me, since I came to understand that I was a person, when I was very young that I was not like my fellow trailer dwelling neighbors. A tomboy and a reader, I see this child and I want to protect her. But the pain of childhood, loss, terror, no innocence, filth, has brought me here. For something more. Compassion and understanding for others.

I can be put down anywhere and make it a home. I can love even though I sometimes believe thats impossible.

If you take away possibility from someone, if you take away the basic mechanism of hope, then you take someones reason for living.

I look for reasons to continue on everyday. There is something more for me. It may not be my lot in life to win trophies and fuck rockstars but being the best Rose I can be? Absolutely.

I am in a state of transformation. I am gluing some fucking wings on and flying to someplace warm. I am writing and reading by water, my body is healing and I know peace, I know love.

A tenderness exists between two hard exteriors, isn't that a beautiful dream?

If I die before I am published, my writing will be given to my oldest friend Anne, who is a professor and a published author. I hope she can edit the words to something she can get published. I am thinking of that Neil Young song 'Unknown Legend'.

Neil Young to Laurie Anderson:

'Some people walk on water, some people walk on broken glass, some just walk round and round in their heads, some just, keep falling down.'

So you keep striving, keep moving forward, make plans, don't live a small life, live a life as big as you want it. Pack up and move. Don't be afraid to create new things. Someone out there will get it. Blessings occur every moment. We have to look without jaded eyes. If we let the ugliness of humanity cover us, the ugliness wins. Be positive, attract good things.

I am lonely. Thats my statement. My future lover is looking for me, that is so exciting. To connect with a man who likes what he sees and goes with what he feels? Thats another statement. Its been so long since I have known that bright star of romance, its all new. Innocent

.



Live. Love. Create.

Everyday begin again. I write these words for you and to remind myself to keep breathing.

2010: Get over shyness, agoraphobia, embrace new things, open myself to love.
Be close to the ocean as much as possible.

Get properly medicated for ADD so I can finish all this writing.

Get stronger, heal up. If my shoulder is to be a limitation, learn to live with it, adapt. If my knee is to be a limitation, adapt.

Get back into yoga, alternative therapies, love more, be a better Mother, get rid of this excess flesh, let go of what doesn't work, take more classes.

Decide which degree to get next, marine biology or public health administration. Double income, grow hair longer, breathe.

Oranges in winter

We gorge ourselves on clementines. I like the name.

I dreamed about being in a romantic kind funny relationship with my surgeon. He is quite a bit older then me btw. I had come out of surgery saying the names of NPR correspondents and had the nurses laughing. He kept me in his private room at the hospital. There was a pain monitor, he could see when the pain spiked. I wanted him to lay with me, he was really nice. Did I mention that? And completely smitten and I was too. Both grateful for each other.

It was a good dream to wake up from. My slow dog was staring into my eyes when I opened them. She is not right, its not her fault. Probably cut off from oxygen in the womb or some such. My son claimed her when she was a pup.

He contends that she is athletic and yes she does go down the slide on my sons back but I have also seen the dog run straight for the blades of a lawn mower and also attempt to drown herself.

Repeatedly.

A slick ride out to my Moms to drop off my girl. My dog sat on my lap and I navigated the slushy or slick roads while listening to "A Prairie Home Companion." I love Garrison Keillor. We got to see them live a few years ago and I enjoyed the experience.

Im going to eat some Amy's black bean chili, take some dayquil and get in bed. I have a few hours to rest before getting my daughter from my Moms. By that time the slush will have had time to freeze and it will be dark.

Let me also say the house smells really good. The tree, the candles, the nag champa.

A prayer for me and for you that 2010 is bigger and better.

Shepherd

When I worked as a crisis counselor in the bad side of town, near Christmas, in came a drunk woman carrying a baby dressed only in a sleeper (you know those footed pajamas).
After assessing their needs, food, someone to talk to, voucher for a cab, the "Mother" got on the phone we kept out for clients. I held this little boy, whose name is Shepherd and he
smiled up at me with big trusting eyes. I could feel that his diaper was full so I laid him down gently on the couch and unzipped his pj's - he had a scar from the top of his ribcage down. I went about changing him and when I took him to his Mom, I asked about his scar. She told me he had had some kind of heart surgery when he was just a newborn. I saw him from time to time, met his Dad also named Shepherd, an older fellow who had the same eyes as his son. How can someone so tiny be so strong, already? The will to live and thrive.

Going down

Slip and slide

Urge to be something more then me.
Smothered slowly, If I forgot to live.
I would still keep on living.
My heart pumping, lungs breathing in air.
Life is life and we are here to hold onto it.

I try not to think of last Christmas.
How I lost all that mattered.
And ended up in the hospital.
To get meds adjusted and smile.

To escape the hospital, I had to smile.
I never was good with authority figures.
I have so much and it all matters.
I have so much darkness and coldness and that matters.

Alexandra Leaving

A song by Leonard Cohen. Oh My Goddess, drink in these beautiful lyrics, tears and nectar from heaven.

Suddenly the night has grown colder.
The god of love preparing to depart.
Alexandra hoisted on his shoulder,
They slip between the sentries of the heart.

Upheld by the simplicities of pleasure,
They gain the light, they formlessly entwine;
And radiant beyond your widest measure
They fall among the voices and the wine.

It’s not a trick, your senses all deceiving,
A fitful dream, the morning will exhaust –
Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving.
Then say goodbye to Alexandra lost.

Even though she sleeps upon your satin;
Even though she wakes you with a kiss.
Do not say the moment was imagined;
Do not stoop to strategies like this.

As someone long prepared for this to happen,
Go firmly to the window. Drink it in.
Exquisite music. Alexandra laughing.
Your firm commitments tangible again.

And you who had the honor of her evening,
And by the honor had your own restored –
Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving;
Alexandra leaving with her lord.

Even though she sleeps upon your satin;
Even though she wakes you with a kiss.
Do not say the moment was imagined;
Do not stoop to strategies like this.

As someone long prepared for the occasion;
In full command of every plan you wrecked –
Do not choose a coward’s explanation
that hides behind the cause and the effect.

And you who were bewildered by a meaning;
Whose code was broken, crucifix uncrossed –
Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving.
Then say goodbye to Alexandra lost.

Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving.
Then say goodbye to Alexandra lost.

See me safely through the night

Over the past 3 years I have learned some things. I have learned how different levels of pain move through the body. The toll it takes on the body and how burned out a person can get. Burned out on pain. So much pain, so little love. I always seek balance, my positive outlook is that alot of love is coming.

As I limped through this cold cold day, unusually cold. Generally a build up to the bitterness. 25 degrees and I am in a vest, today I was cold like a skinny girl. I bought a thick long sweater. A hat with flaps. I came home and I wanted to hear John Lennons voice.

My foot keeps turning in. I notice this from a distance. My leg from hip to toes is torqued, knee twisted and not quite healed from surgery. Running errands, making Christmas and happiness for others and I look for something anything to keep the darkness from rolling in.

I think of how much California felt like home. Just a few days and I am smitten. Sometimes it is like that.

Right now, I am doing time in a place I don't want to be, in a situation that is less then stellar. Alot of needless stress. A life with less purpose then I want.

Cliff diving, scuba diving, baptism by ocean water, sunset, back in my sundresses, relaxed life, healthy living, healthy loving.

I could be packed and gone within a week, you know. I did the website for our realtors, Sandi and Linda. Just sell it or give it to my sister and get some rent. Pack the car, rent a trailer, we can get beds, we can swap houses with a visiting professor, we could exchange this utter misery for brighter days. I could work somewhere, deal with people, haha. I could finish a book. Get some freelance gigs.

All by myself. I just want to say I can do it. I can do it anytime. I don't have to choose the loneliness and tears and cold nose and spider webs.

Because of all the loss and remorse and fights, I love my town but I can't get forward, I have forgone my own fulfillment for my childrens that I have so little, I have nothing.

I just need books, clothes, dogs, a coupla cats, my daughter. My son is halfway out the door.

I am a nomad at heart, my feet nailed to the floor here. Because kids need consistency.

My needs. A need.

One good thing.

I feel like I got shots in my arms. My braces ache, my scars remind me of the times I went under the knife to repair and never completely healed.

Dear Universe, send me a sign that California is where I belong, omens come to me, I intuitively know this.

I will miss the huge murder of crows that live in my town. I wont miss much else, as long as there are trees and water and interesting good people, a bedroom thats dark and cave like, I am content.

Roses go to sleep in the winter, some flower all year long.

Whats it gonna be my thorny lovely thing?

Realization

I have merely tasted a drop or two of creativity. So much out there to delve into. Dive deep. I always admired the SEALS diving from helicopters into the middle of the ocean (or other troops who do the same) - expected to figure out where they are at and with a pack, get back home.

Thats where I am, waiting to jump. I can smell the ocean and I want it. I don't know how I will react once Im there but I want it.

How many years does a person wait for the miracle of purpose to come? I think you just do something and if it doesn't work, do something else.

A quote from a John Cusack movie I can't remember at the moment but was centered around skiing and Frankie. "You go down the hill, something gets in your way, turn."

Its a full moon. Damn that moon is sensual. I hope where you are at, you can see her. Yea, the moon is female.




The moon is always female but the sun
is female only in lands where females
are let into the sun to run and climb.

Marge Piercy

Giving myself hope

My mind jumps, leaps, falls and goes down hills into semi filled ditches and I lay there in the water and wonder if this it and then I am off again. Its a ragged rugged mental race. My brain my mind, the only thing that matters - to my own self.

Everyone matters. However to myself, me as Rose, my brain matters. My body has failed me countless times and I am covered with scars and diving back into a big operation sometime in Jan but thats old news.

I am working on a will and I don't know what to leave and to who and why. Can't I just say, whatever money I have, put it in savings for those rainy days (that I love, rain that is) if someone wants to edit my writing and publish it, that would be a good legacy. Its not pretty though, alot of the writing is gritty and ugly. So much of my life has been spent as an observer of the ugliness of humanity.

Though I look for the best, my brain, my mind.

I dreamt that a dream came true. I was putting peanut butter on peanut butter cookies while sitting in a meadow, I looked over and there was the fellow for me. He had two girls. His name I think was Trissa. Ofcourse there was some magical thing involving mythological happenings. He was not much taller then me. He fit. He was by a tree.

I was shocked that something so good and fine had happened. I was minding my own business and there he was.

Thanksgiving is alot of stress, getting a huge meal prepared for a bunch of vegetarians. I had my roast turkey breast, a bit dry but still, TURKEY. I love turkey. It was humanely raised, slaughtered and fed gold or whatever it is they feed fancy well cared for pricey turkeys these days.

My Lu and I colored some Thanksgiving themed printouts and decorated the wall above the table. She set the table. She peeled potatoes, slowly but she did it. We ate and ate after listening to Alice's Restaurant and then saying what we were thankful for. Miles said he was thankful for women.

I forgot to take my b.c. pills for a week so I am pmsing, I recognize this, I don't know how I blew it this time around but its okay.

We need to think good things about ourselves, no slagging, we need to think good things about others. Which is hard because I find myself ridiculous and when I see other people treat each other without kindness, it makes me ridicule them. I am sarcastic without thinking about it. Thats my main language with Brian.

Grateful:

1) My bed is waiting, with a good book to be read
2) Tomorrow my girl goes to spend the night at her grandmas leaving me to feel unhinged in peace.
3) I see my therapist who has been fighting cancer for 2 almost 3 months now, first time I've seen her since she was diagnosed. And she says she misses ME. I miss her. She is one of the best people I know and not just because she knows all my secrets and still thinks I am a wonderful person. She once wrote to me that I am a mystic.
4) I get to sleep soon and the dreams will show me what I need to do or atleast be entertaining or horrifying.
5) I will wake up in the morning.
6) I can almost turn my head without squeaking in pain.
7) My best friend sent me an email about what we will get up to when we are old.
8) I got to talk to my Mom today. She told me she loved me. Till I was about 30, I had only heard her tell me she loved me maybe 3 times.
9) I am going to scrub my bathroom tomorrow and feel good when its clean!
10) Lush.com products will be arriving any day, so taking a bath will involve the most amazing smells and glitter.
11) I am constantly being showered with good things, the Universe blesses me. Love walks near.
12) I have a purpose, I have many purposes, they show themselves from time to time.
13) My right leg, right arm, face, left foot, both butt cheeks are healthy!

Rock on. Rose

Paid to write, never paid to love, unless the money is good!

Great how to site from a real life freelance writer with 8 hour days:

http://www.thursdaybram.com/

And her name is Thursday! What a cool name! Sure Rose is a cool name but to be named after a day of the week? Is she Wednesday Addamsesque?

Thats my goal. Paid to write. I am graduated, I have always been a writer. Asking the U to throw some opportunities this way. Since I kept my first online journal almost 10 years ago, I think I have experience. I can also make uninteresting things downright amusing. Thats what keeps me ticking.

Several freelance gigs to keep me active, dollars in the bank and moving forward. People want to hire me, I have that thing they are looking for, passion, loyalty and I am great with deadlines. Infact, I like to rub up against deadlines. Gets the ole adrenaline going.

Sure there are alot of people out there clamoring for writing gigs. I wont clamor. I will merely just be me, no need to plump my skills or be anyone else.

The Rose Zen of getting writing jobs.

Write books, help people write their stories, freelance non fiction writing, research articles, travel writing.

Love what you do. For reals. I love helping Moms have their babies, I love having babies, I love writing, I love people and their stories. I love warriors, troops and their hardness that covers where its soft, I love helping people, I love laughing at nothing and everything. I love and thats what matters. Full on love.

Im glad you are so positive about the future

Dear child, girl of mine. Whose cold body has pressed against mine so many mornings and nights and otherwise cold times I have forgotten.

I love it when you make plans, Friday glitter polish on the nails, Saturday we play a game on the computer. Sunday, we go to mini Thanksgiving.

And I, and I, can't see past this next silent scream. I hide it in sleeping, I hide it in hiding in my bedroom.

Last night though, I drug the quilt the one that my Mom made me the one that in some way proves without a doubt that my Mom loves, loved me at some point. That quilt, to the livingroom and we watched a movie while your Dad was away. Your body is longer and leaner and I get to see you grow.

Your skin is already alligatory, there is a technical term for it. We spend all dry months fighting this. I have to stay on top of it and cover you head to toe in Dream Cream or Olive Oil. Your Dad doesn't understand what its like when the bodies biggest organ hurts.

So chapped, when its at its worse I dab the oil on, like painting eggs, it hurts you so much, it hurts me.

I love how positive you are, that you know without a doubt that there will be a tomorrow, 3 hours from now. That your Mom will make it through another winter when the days and nights are so dark..

Thank you my girl child, my curly haired wild thing. Thank You.

Odyssey

Ahoy fellow travelers. I am listening to my child read Junie B. and suffering. The suffering isn't from the book reading, mind you. I think I am having a cortisone flair in one foot, because the pain is somehow worse then before the injections.

Thursday all will be well. I will be dancing about my house and words will flow and hell I wont get to 50k unless I take up meth but I will get to 20k and thats a damn good start on a book.

Besides my own first world problems. I dreamt that Leonard Cohen died and I was in such pain. I don't know him, through his songs. Anyways in this dream, someone gave me his left over lip stuff. It was very sentimental.

Sometimes and only sometimes its good to wake up.

Rifling

Today while playing Scrabble I got a Bingo on the first round of play. It came to me immediately, Finagle.

Brian was gone to Chicago as he is bi weekly, which left me to care for the children solo. I picked up Lydia early from school and we went to the movies. Bad choice. Dickens, even Disneyfied is no go for little ones.

I remember when I would ask the kids, when they came home from school if they wanted to go back. Ever. School is it for learning or is it for social experience. To know you are different and lookee different is weird. I was the girl eating dandelions. Now I prefer pomegrantes.

There was a Curious George book where he flooded the entire house, it involved soap. When I was little I thought that was the coolest thing in the world. Now, when I think about giving up and walking into the water to sleep, I wonder if Curious George had anything to do with it.

Tonight when I was looking through photos people had uploaded (a application grabs all the uploaded photos and displays them, you scroll down to look, inspire, horrify, ponder and then hit reload - its called skimming) I found a beautiful beautiful image.

A day of leaves and rememberance

I was watching a video of a young man, brought home. 24 years old and thats his life. Below is the video, I took my bat outside and bashed some pumpkins, for the squirrels and birds and also to get some of the unfocused anger at the god damn war and the children that fight it. I know they signed up, I know thats their job, I am proud of my military brothers and sisters, no doubt. I simply want them all to live a long full life.

Sitting outside, in the mid 50's. The dogs went inside to sleep or wreak havoc or whatever it is they do when they are not underneath. A bee wanted a piece of me. I am not sweet bee!

The trampoline needs a good sweep.

Going to workout, sand down a bookcase and walk through the park I am a caretaker for. Bring garbage bag and gloves. Enjoy the strip of almost silence in the middle of the city.

I dreamt that I was in my birth city and looking for a place to stay. Brian was running alongside the train getting donations for some girls dream. I didn't want to stay with any relatives. Before that I was at Eminems birhday party. He took over a bar/restaurant and so I can safely say that I did not on purpose attend his birthday party. I remember reminding him of the talented Michiganders. Like Aretha Franklin and Iggy Pop.

Itunes on shuffle. Air Supply and then Everclear - Santa Monica.

Plantar fascitis means no more barefooting for me. I am rarely in shoes. Mid winter you might find me standing in the snow. I gotta get as close to the earth as possible. I am not Persephone.

Halloween and the night is alive

The night is alive and the trees swing deliriously back and forth to their own crazy melody.
Cats and dogs hide in my bed, while the tap tap tapping of my computer keeps time with the fan in the window. Pushing cooling crazy weather into my room.

I am open to being a professional writer. I will start wherever. I have faith in the words I write and thats alot. I worry about my stomach still thinking there is a babe cooking in there but the words, yes the words.

Early morning quick day start for me. I perform best under pressure late at night.

Speaking of which nano starts November 1st. I am on it. Writing screenplays, my own thing. I make words happen.

Ok!

"As Long As You WANT It, You Can't Have It. Be It. And It's YOURS."

That makes sense. Stop banging your head against the wall of want and just sit there and think of whatever it is (being a employed freelance writer living in California) picture yourself doing it.

Last night I turned off the light early for me as I was overcome with this soft yet intense feeling of love. I lay there seeing this intense wonderful being who is just mine and lovely in my presence.

It felt write.

Let us all go towards what feels right.

Don't go peeking around the past unless thats where you want to be.

Adventures to the front, promise.

Some things

Sunday night again. Last Sunday night I was with my youngest at the hospital for her sleep study. She did really well and as soon as I get an acceptable photo editing program on this new Mac I will post some photos of her. Sad sad sad to see your little one in a hospital bed. She LOVED it though.

Ofcourse she has sleep apnea. I have known it and her Dad has denied it for years. I can't go back in the past and over ride his shit so I am going to move forward.

Today is the 3rd anniversary of our house fire. Here is a photo
:




Shudder.

Our laundry room destroyed. Severe smoke damage all over the house. I thought that we had alot of spider webs. They weren't actually spider webs. They were melted plastic floating around. I thought that was pretty cool.

Gotta end with something positive and bright. Halloween 2008 - theme - Nightmare Before Christmas. The coolest prop we had was a fogger that also blew fogger bubbles. It was mesmerizing. This year is my nephew Trevors first Halloween! This week I am going to paint my pumpkin. I got one that is skeleton face shaped. We'll see what I come up with.

Dear 1

Dear Myself,

How are you? I hope this letter finds you well, because babe, you haven't been. While in retrospect, falling down and cracking your head on a dogcage is funny, its not one of those things you should be waking up in the middle of the night after a particularly intoxicating dream of uniforms and full relases and laughing about, then forgetting why you woke up.

Forgetting names for common things is also a bad sign.

Also, did you see how long that sentence went on? You can only be a great writer and do e.e. cummings shit once you have mastered the language.

You look like Meatloaf with the crack in the head in Rocky Horror Picture Show. Without all the bloating.

Remember the other day at the YMCA when you stood in the elevator for atleast a minute, thinking the elevator is moving, thinking you have pressed the down button (because the knee hates stairs) but in the realy real world, you have simply pressed the 'close door' button.

You should go see your doctor. It should only take 2 or so hours, bring a pillow. And to get weighed by the fully mustached nurse? What isn't to like.

Remember when doctors gave out suckers aka lollipops? Confusing signals indeed.

Two day old iced tea will perk you up, but will it ever make you happy? The same goes with food. Eat to live, not live to eat. Yes I saw the Taco Bell wrappers. Yes I know you have lost weight and inches.

Is any day a good day to get your new drivers license with hideous photo in the mail? It is not.

Cleaning the livingroom and breaking in the new MAC is not the way to fulfillment.

Remember how peaceful you feel when you just let go and let the pain and sadness fall down into the magma underneath the earths crust and let the dreams and intentions float up to the stars and whomever lives up there. Goddess, Jesus, Lakshmi?

You get to go to Los Angeles and Venice Beach and see the ocean and wear cool clothes and meet atleast one cool person, Francesca Lia Block. Maybe she can tell you something you haven't thought of.

Cathedral

I walked into his cathedral, limping. Banged and bruised, inside and out. Hair mussed, curls hanging up and down and a large orange butterfly clipped into the madness. Leopard print cane supporting my gimp knee, slow steps, we found our seats. I said 'J' for Jewish and we all laughed. Well I did. Sitting at row Jewish, I began to get nervous. Nervous for this old man about to creak out onto the stage, nervous for my expectations which are always high and never ever within reach. I looked at the Goddesses on the walls, butterflies too and I knew I was in good company. Golden and serene, taking it all in, perplexing humanity spreading out among the seats. I have been alone in my love for his music for years. What a treat to be among fan boys and girls.

At the appointed time the band began, the players so deeply good in the knowledge of their instrument, aged and smiling. I smiled too. On the end of my seat is where I first saw him. Old but not creaking, he skipped to the microphone and launched into one of my favorites, he knelt at the guitar player and sang. The music swirled tenderly through the air and I took deep breaths to bring it into me. It was one of those sacred times when there is no time, nothing more then music and the man with the golden voice singing his prayers, bowing respectfully to his band. Joking and full of life at 74. I had no idea that a person could still be enthralled with life at that age. My expectation was that life begins to leak out sometime around 60 or in my case, 37.

I began to feel illuminated in his presence, my tank empty began to fill. The songs that kept me above water on dark nights blessed me, again and again. I was not healed but close.

When he sang 'Forget your perfect offerings, there is a crack, a crack in everything – thats how the light gets in.' I cried. I cried for me and for you and Leonard. I have cracks and no spackle my pain bleeds out my eyeballs and I know what you mean when you call yourself the snowman.

A woman behind me screamed “Marry me Leonard!” She is completely serious. There are many I love yous, tossed from all around the cathedral. I reach out with my heart to him, I offer him many years of life and love that endures. I ask him, in my head and heart to never die. Most songs got standing ovations, he smiled out at us. The house lights would come up a lot so he could properly see us.

It was a sitting kinda concert so I danced sitting in my seat. The music swirling as I mentioned before, somehow a deeper poignancy in the words, his voice deeper, richer with age. At moments, I find myself with my arms out, palms up offering and receiving. Borrowing the intensity and sincere love that flows from his music. I am in a trance, fully taken, open to receive. 'We may be ugly but, we got the music.' Exactly.

That night at the end of the show, he thanked everyone, even the caterers, he bowed to his backup singers, the stage hands, the truckers. A full bow too, none of those quickie bows. 3 hours of playing, 3 encores, it was time to go.

He said, “We don't know when we'll be back.” I cried. I was full of his honesty and beauty. The years were not always kind but they were his. He relishes them and grows, still grows.