Alter Ego in Excessive Jewelry

A soft cry. I turn my ear. A frantic scamper, windows painted shut. Doorknobs rusted. She pounds now, desperate to get out, tugging, grunting -determined.

" Let me out! " she wails.

" It's too late," I shush her.

" No, No, there's still time..." she pants. 

She is wide-eyed, wild- haired, barefooted, silver earrings swinging. Mostly I neglect her, forget she is there.

" Please..." she begs.

 It's cruel to ignore her much longer.

She pounds again. Her bangles jingling.

I sigh, rocking my sheltered life.

She senses me weakening. Pounces. " I am the longing, you know it. I have your dreams, right here. " She reaches into the deep pockets of her long, flowing skirt.

 I hear the delight, a burst of wind chimes. She drops a small dream; The colors: teal, magenta, yellow, shimmer at her feet.

She sees my eyes glaze. I reach for the dream, but she snatches it and stuffs it back in her pocket. " Not until you let me out. "

I shrug, " I'd only let it wither. "

" But I won't! " She promises. 

" It' not that easy, " I tell her.

" Is THIS easy? This half-life of yours? "

I turn away. Embarrassed.  

She entices. " Your dance, it's ready at my feet, your desires, cling to my hair. "

We both wait, in the silence.

" Let me show you. "

" Not yet, " I say.

" What do you wait for? " she snaps.

 I lower my eyes. 

" Think about what you want. Go ahead. Try it. " 

" I'm afraid, " I tell her. 

She puts out her hand, rings on every finger and whispers,  
" So what? "

image from personal antique photo collection

Dumpster Rat Has Nothing On Me

I have been making trips to the dumpster, throwing out - all through the night. The air is so warm and thick, it feels like velvet. It gives a false sense of safety, out here alone in a parking lot at 2:00 AM.

I carry a box, stuffed with a feather bed that has, at one time or another, kept all of us warm. Inside the box are photos, old, that no one wants. There too, are the three small pillows, hand sewn and embroidered with each of my girls' names. There is the big pot that offered batch after batch of vegetable soup, always eagerly received; and cup cake pans that once held ladybug treats for a classroom of first- graders.

I drop it all in the dumpster, the noise of the pot and pans, muffled by photos, feather

bed and tiny pillows. The history of my life, in a nondescript clankety- clank. I am dizzy from the heat, dizzy from fatigue, heartache.

I wobble a little, backward and look down, seeing that I have stepped on a stripped ear of corn. I think of the rat that had been dining before I interrupted.

 
"Is this your home?" I whisper into the dumpster where I know she is hiding, corn in her teeth.

There is a soft rustle, a burrowing down. Her answer. I imagine she has lived here all her life. And her mother before that and her mother before that...

"Lucky you," I tell the rat, meaning it.

I walk across the courtyard up the stairs, jealous of a rat, unseen. 

I curl up on the floor of my apartment, furniture all gone, knowing it is one of my last nights here. I am out of tears.

 I steer my thinking away from a decrepit car and a nowhere job. I let my mind wrap around my family, all that I have. I think of my parents, ancient and wonderful.  I see my dad's face, handsome still at 88, pride etched in every crease. I see my mom, and the softness in her gray eyes. My girls' bright smiles, sparkle at me, as if in a dream, but I know I am still awake; sleep doesn't come this easy. I reach for them and their genuine devotion. My grandbaby scampers by in these thoughts, wearing that look, that shows she knows it is her divine right to be adored. 

I am so tired. I find the thin blanket on the floor next to me. I pull it up to my shoulders, tuck it under my chin. It is familiar and welcoming and comfortable, like love itself. It is where I live. I have lived in love my entire life. Lucky me, so very lucky me. I rest my head on the one pillow that hasn't yet hit the dumpster. It is so soft; it cradles my head, like I am somebody.

Who Do You Shout at Now?

Once in awhile someone will ask if we still talk, " Oh no", I tell them and they shake their heads in disbelief. But in truth, I do still, from time to time, talk to you from afar. I look at the Gumbygirl and ask you if you can comprehend what you are missing. That the similarities between the little one and her mother would be enough to break your heart, if you knew. But then I wonder, not it a flippant or sarcastic way, if you still have a heart to break.

I watched the oldest going off to work today, ponytail, swinging just so. She looked so much like her third grade self, only twenty years later and today, instead of backpack, she carried her lunch and nursing shoes and a secret new life, growing inside her. This is something I would have told you when I handed you your dinner, I would have said," Hon, you should have seen her today, so mature, so beautiful as she walked away. But you know what? I could still see exactly her eight year old self too." And you might not have looked up from your over-buttered potato; you probably would not have. You would not have taken your eyes off TV, that I know for certain. Such a cliche our lives were.

The days are closing in when the youngest and I will have no place of our own. I will not have a nest for the others and their families to visit. I know how happy that will make you, because it is after all, all I have, their visits to my hearth, their fingerprints on my heart. But the fingerprints are mine to keep.

I finally found a place willing to give me a job. Take a chance on an oldie out of the workforce for too long. Couple the bad economy with no experience and add my liver spots and gray hair apparent, and it isn't a surprise that I have to be grateful to have even this. You would mock it. Shake your head in disgust and say, "That's God damn ridiculous. A sixteen year old can make more than that at McDonalds." I imagine myself now, the new me, snapping back. " Do you think I would choose to make so little?"

 I am not very good with math, this we both know, but I do know enough to understand that something is better than nothing. At this place, I am paid in praise, it is really true that the amount I earn could not keep a bird alive. That's my moms expression, do you remember? Of course you do not. There isn't room in your new life for clutter like that. 

But this job gives me a place to go, where someone expects me to show up and counts on me to fax and file, fax and file. I might learn something here, in ways I can't predict. And I will tell you a secret, how I get happily through the monotony of each day.  I tell myself, "with each file you move a fraction of an inch away from him, and that much closer to the life you were meant to have." And it helps some, it really does.  

If an old acquaintance asks if we talk, I say no, not at all, and they might shake their heads at 34 years, all meaningless. I just press my lips together in acceptance.  I don't tell them that from time to time I still talk to the space you left, or that the time between conversations grows steadily, blessedly, ever longer.