Reflections and Short Stories

Our Circle

4/2024

The spring sun settles over the garden, and the last whispers of chilly air retreat into the shadowy nooks, yielding to a long-awaited warmth. A gentle warmth that makes you want to pull off your sweater even though there’s only a bra underneath and some of your flabby white underbelly might be seen. But no matter, it’s a gathering of women that you trust, so it’s ok to expose those tender places that rarely see the light of day.

Joan’s hair cascades like a mane, reddish blond, and wild with dark roots peeking through amongst the kaleidoscope of colors. Her face, naturally beautiful, is adorned by a wide smile framed by curves and wrinkles radiating out like ripples of joy. She embodies a fusion of hippie chic meets farm girl grit, always ready to work hard and play hard. “Don’t worry about taking off your top,” she assures, “I sit out here naked all the time, so my neighbors are used to it.”

Joan is carrying a small cutting board with three chunks of cheese and a blue Fiesta bowl of seedy crackers. She sets them down on the rusted fire bowl lid, and says gleefully, “Oh, this is going to be so much fun!” I’ve brought a burrata salad and I open my tub of homemade dressing composed of orange and lime juice, Dijon mustard, and a hint of raw sugar, pouring it over the salad. Mason jars serve as our cups, and the prosecco, fresh orange juice, and a French rose begin flowing freely. We squeeze in a key lime pie, chocolate macaroons, fresh strawberries, and more crackers and dips, until there is not even an inch of space left on our makeshift table.

The garden is unkept just enough to give it a “secret garden” allure. No meticulously trimmed hedges, carefully laid pine straw, or pressure washed stones here. Just a weathered iron fire cauldron in the center, surrounded by Adirondack chairs with little spots of mold, and stain from rain and pollen. A small pond, encased by a rock wall cloaked in mustard green moss, adds to the rustic charm. Surrounding the garden a mix of azaleas, peonies, oak hydrangeas, and other bushes thrive untamed. Natural beauty is much more captivating than perfection. 

If the garden could speak, what tales would it tell? Would it whisper secrets absorbed over time, or deflect with the breeze, revealing nothing? Perhaps it would declare itself a sanctuary, where pain dissipates and love flourishes.

Laugher ensues. All the sisters talking over one another, and the daughters begging for less information while secretly wanting more. We talk of how to juggle multiple suiters, when pride leads to silence and apostasy, a movie about feminine awakening, and how many times we should forgive. We find ourselves engaged in a collective spring cleaning of the spirit, purging dark corners and dusting off neglected aspects of ourselves, infusing life into dormant desires.  

The sun’s intensity grows, and the bottles begin to sweat. One by one we bid farewell with strong hugs and emotional release. The neighbors also sigh as the show is over, or perhaps they rejoice, finally able to enjoy their Sunday siesta free of chatter.

Whatever secrets escaped into the garden are now blurred by the heat and the bubbles. We have left our burdens and taken a kind acceptance of ourselves and our shared humanity. 

We will always circle back for more joy. 

Frozen in time

4/2024 - Before Cal's birthday

The clock ticks

I’m frozen in time

If I could stay right here

I might not think about the loss

Of you

Both

I’d think about the birds chirping in the distance

Fussing over their hatchlings

About the tabby cat crouched behind my abelia

Waiting to pounce

I’d think about the dahlia in the painted pot on my flagstone patio

That reminds me of the colors in a sunset

About the green tea that warms my cold hands

About the knitted blanket over my puffy toes…

My eyes are beginning to water

Cause when I think of these things

I think of you

Both

And I always miss you

When I think

The clock’s still ticking

I’m frozen in time

When We Get What We Don’t Deserve

Sometimes…

We don’t deserve love, but we get it

We don’t deserve mercy, but we are given it

We don’t deserve kindness, but it is offered

No expectation of reciprocation

No debt owed

No exchange

No nothing

Just a gift given

Do we say,

“I didn’t deserve, but I was given.”

Or do we…

Forget

Question

Ignore

Minimize

Compare

We should say,

“I don’t deserve this.”

Not only for the bad, but for the

Unexpected, unpaid, unearned blessings

Did you even notice?

Or were your thoughts consumed with confirming an underserved malice?

We deserve nothing

But sometimes we get everything in a moment of mercy

You will find what you are looking for.

No Regrets

Do I have regrets? 

Yes, many. 

To live without regrets would be inhumane 

We are fallible, we make mistakes, we are human 

I have many regrets, but also, so much to look forward to 

I do not let my regrets govern me

I acknowledge their existence

Their presence humbles me and reminds me that I am just one step away from failure  

or one step away from success

I cannot have courage without fear

or victory without defeat 

I am human 

I have failed

Life gives room for both  

Acceptance of both gives life balance 

“To be or not to be”

Why do we try so hard to be something?

Why not just be?

It is in being in each moment that we become who we were meant to be.

Nature continually changes and adapts.

There is no shame in this.

It’s the best form of survival.

It is the only way to flourish.

Just be, and be kind to who you are in that moment.

“Change is what we are chemically designed for.”

(Someone said that, I don’t know who it was, or I would give them the credit. But I agree wholeheartedly!)​

Vera and I

We got a popsicle at the Gardens after Vera had just told me that they didn’t have cake for her brother Kian’s birthday because, as she put it, “cakes have too much sugar.” (She lowered her voice when she mentioned the “sugar” like it is something best not spoken too loudly.) It was hot, and I wanted her to feel the delight of a cold popsicle on a hot summer day, but I had to justify the popsicle by telling her (and myself) that it didn’t have too much sugar because “it was packed full of shredded coconut.”  

She ate it attentively as we sat beside the lily pads, watching the dragonflies hover and land, as if they couldn't make up their minds which enticing lily to rest on.  She leaned over the grass so she wouldn’t drip on herself. The OCD in me kept dabbing every sticky creamy coconut milk drip with a paper towel. After trying her best to hold a large popsicle and lean, she finally reached for the paper towel and set it firmly across her lap. She was going to fix the “drip” problem once and for all. 

We listened to music as we sat. My phone played “Dancing in the Dark,” and she said that it was “her song.” The downside of listening to music on my phone is that I have to tap it every few seconds because when the picture goes away, she insists I bring it back. It’s part of the musical experience. 

To keep her from too much sugar, I asked her for bites from time to time, to which she gladly obliged and never once hesitated or told me to take a smaller bite. She laughed when she accidentally bit the popsicle stick and told me through a chuckle, “we don’t eat shticks.” 

The last bit of the popsicle fell off the stick and landed in the paper towel. She slurped it up in a messy flurry and we both ended up with sticky hands. I wanted to take her to the restroom, she wanted to climb the stairs so we could see the gardens from above, so we did. There’s something about that birds eye view that brings everything into focus. She counted as we climbed and then we counted in Spanish. I’d say, “uno” and she’d repeat. 

We washed out the sticky, and then had to hurry to the car so we wouldn’t miss swim class. She asked if she could listen to music as we drove and hold my phone. I told her “Yes” and “Yes,” but reminded her that she wouldn’t always get to hold my phone when we drove. I told her if I had to say “no” next time she’d need to say “ok,” and she said no. So, I said “si” and she said “no” again. (Si sometimes works.) So, I said “no” and she said “yes.” And then we laughed, and she held my phone.  

Using her whiny voice about half-way through the drive she told me that she didn’t want to go to swim class (she doesn’t like it when water gets in her eyes). I stopped the music so I could hear her. We talked about swimming like a mermaid, and she said that she’d learn to swim like a mermaid so Kian (her older brother) could swim like a fish and then they’d swim together. After a brief silence it appeared we’d worked it out, so she asked me to turn the music back on.  

In the shower after swim class and I wanted to wash her hair, so I told her to look at the black bug on the ceiling. I told her if she kept her eyes on that bug, she wouldn’t get water in her eyes. She fixed her stare until I was done. No water in her eyes. No more tears. Just giggles at getting to hold the oversized showerhead and feeling the warm water against her petite round tummy.  

I wrapped her in a towel and called her, “Love.” She said that her name was Vera. I asked if she could be “Vera Love,” and she said, “OK, but I’m still Vera.” 

She played with her little plastic mermaid and weighted rubber torpedo as we drove home. She calls the torpedo a “space rocket.” I told her it’s a torpedo, but how would she understand what that is? I hope she never truly understands what a torpedo does. I hope she can always admire simple beauty and that her unique logic always finds practical solutions. I hope she always loves popsicles and always tries to avoid too much sugar. But I hope she also learns that a little sugar is ok, especially if it’s in the form of a coconut popsicle on a hot summer day.   

Vera is two and a half. I’m fifty.  

She reminds me every day to stay young, and be wise.

The Mother’s Choice or Her Butterfly Self 

December 31, 2023 

Then she let out a cry.  

Not a gentle cry where soft tears pitter-patter down her cheeks, but the kind that starts in the vortex of a hollow soul and roars up through the chest and out the throat with the rage of an angry volcano that appeared dormant, all the while steaming and simmering deep beneath the ground. Until one day, one unexpected clear sky day, all hell breaks loose. 

Hot lava spews from her mouth like an uncapped oil gusher. It boils with pain and agony that can never be quelled but can be released. 

She catches her breath and lets out another roar, and another, until, with time, the pain only gurgles out. When it is finished, her empty corpse staggers against a mound of hardened, charcoaled rock, porous and jagged, now engulfing her. 

Trembling, she begins the difficult climb out of the mountain of her own making. She is but a shell of her former self, kept alive through the hot pain of death mixed with an undying passion for life. She is now as light as a feather, light enough for her unsteady arms to lift her fragile frame. She cuts her hands and her feet, but she hardly feels the pain as she is numb and confused in the absence of her inner flame. 

The air is cold and haunting without the warmth that burned inside her gut. She is confounded to see with her own eyes the remnants of what once lived inside her. This reinforces her determination to put distance between her and the smoldering mound. It is no longer part of her, but she must hurry. If she lingers, she too may collapse upon the familiar remains and never get up again. 

She crawls, too weak to stand. Her ghost shivers from the emptiness within and without. Finally, after a sloth's journey, she plants her bare feet firmly on the ground. 

She turns to look back at the heap, so lifeless and foreboding. Then she turns forward, for this is what she has always done. 

She stumbles on, and as she does, she appreciates the lightness in her step. Her step grows stronger. Slowly, with time, she notices the colors of the birds again and feels the warmth of the sun on her face. The birds are rum red, charcoal black, snow white and teal, and salmon. The colors in the sun’s kaleidoscope are limitless. After everything her soul has endured, the sun feels especially charming and bright. She squints, but she lets it warm her. 

She knows she will always live between two worlds. The one that is present, and the one of the past that mists around her. The children she has lost, and the ones she has kept. The place where memories can be replayed for pleasure or pain, but cannot be remade. 

She gathers flowers and thinks of her children. She watches the dandelion seeds float away and thinks of her children. She looks for a place, somewhere in-between where they can all be together. A sunny hill somewhere where they can share a picnic together and tease one another and do playful childlike things. A place where the past and present come together. An eclipse. An eclipse of love. All the love that weighs upon her heart, and all the love that lifts it. 

Then she cries again. This time her voice is soft, and the tears are warm. Her empty vessel filling with tenderness and pouring over. Warm salty tears splash down her face and onto the ground. Her stomach quickens. The deluge is gone, and she gently waters the earth with her tears. Her tears seep down deep, touching all that was. Nature is nurtured by the tears of a mother. 

The sun is setting. She gives one last longing look at the sun. Then she says goodbye and knows it will return tomorrow. She does not know if she will wake in the shadows or in its shine. If she will wake with fear or courage. But she knows she will wake. If she is given another day, then she will take it. If she is given one more day in this season, she will take it. She knows like no other how quickly seasons change. Loss has brought value to what remains. 

She rests. 

Then she lifts her butterfly self and steps into the next day. 

Our Ghosts

July 21, 2024

When we live with our ghosts,  

we live in-between two worlds.  

Their presence is always with us.  

It is we who must decide whether their presence

will bring us joy or pain.

They would want to us to feel joy.

The One for Cat Lovers… 

July 10, 2024

She’s worked at our favorite little French café for 20 years, she tells us. She was a manager once, but it wasn’t worth the stress, and she didn’t like taking work home.  

One day she took home some menus that needed to be sewn, and her cat (one of five) ate the thread and ended up at the vet. 

The conversation quickly evolves into more cat stories, as it so often does when talking with a cat lover, and before I know it, my rosé becomes less appealing as I start hearing words like “bloated stomach,” “swollen bitten hand,” and “Feline Leukemia Virus.” 

I initiated this conversation with our server. Now, I’m trying to figure out how to end it. 

I had been inquisitively examining the menu, which I stopped looking at long ago. It never changes and I always get the same thing – we share the Goats in the Orchard salad, then I get the Tart Du Jour, and Kev gets a pizza on spent grain – but I’ve shoved it away because all I can think about is gastro inflammation and hairballs. 

Thin with a ringlet bob and rectangular dark-framed glasses, our server has always fascinated me. How can she do the same thing over and over for so many years and not feel like she’s stuck behind the green door?  

Did she ever want to do something else? What are her passions? I’ve heard her repeat the same sentence so many times I have it memorized, “The soup du jour is our roasted garlic (sometimes there’s a cold cucumber), and our tarts are roasted red pepper and greens pie.”  

Maybe she likes the tranquility of consistency and dependability. 

Maybe, I’m secretly jealous. 

I’d love to be content doing the same thing every day. Imagine the mental bandwidth that would open up if I wasn’t always reaching for more, checking mental to-do’s, evaluating myself, passing judgment, and feeling guilt. Guilt for what, I don’t always know. It’s been my buddy for so long that if there wasn’t something specific to feel guilty about, I think I’d create something, just because it would be so unsettling to release my dark, tattered, shadowy companion.  

Like a comfort blanket that has long outlived its usefulness, and become a crutch, guilt continues to be dragged along for fear of the emptiness that will be felt in its wake. 

I reel my thoughts back in and she’s still talking about cats, so I smile and let my mind drift off again. 

The décor surrounding me looks like something straight out of “Amelie,” nostalgic and dreamlike, with vintage paintings of all shapes and sizes covering every inch of the wall, and eclectic decorations like exotic birds balancing on a string hung from one end of the ceiling to the other, gathering dust. There are velvet and hand-embroidered pillows of saturated colors pushing me out of my seat and a vase of fake flowers on the ledge behind my head that I’ve already knocked off twice. 

The menu has not changed since I first visited this café 15 years ago. What keeps bringing me back is a sense that I am back in Europe, and perhaps, back in time. With so many things having changed throughout my life, and so many things lost, it’s nice to have something that feels vintage and has remained. “Something’s never change,” can be more comforting than instability. 

The servers dressed in the same heavy cotton "Marinière" blue and white striped shirts associated with the French nautical tradition – they say that the stripes helped to spot a man overboard. A rotund dishwasher with an overgrown beard and a large thick plastic apron, looking like someone who just stepped out of the galley of one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, walks past us every couple of minutes, eyes straight ahead with an expression of being stuck in the wrong time and place. A ghost.  

Two servers who have never left the establishment in all the years I’ve been here. The same smells, same dim lighting, same wild sourdough bread served right after the wine, with olive oil and tiny bits of black pepper. Same full-length mirror in the bathroom so I can watch myself pee. Same. Same. Same. Maybe the green door’s secret is that it stays the same.  

We are a contradiction.  

We want to discover the new and yet we yearn for the old and its comfort. 

Kudos to the cat lady. I think she’s got it figured out.