Inbetweeners

We hear so much about the Greatest Generation, and their offspring, the Boomers.  But before the Boomers, an entire mid-generation, for lack of a better term, endured the latent effects of The Great Depression and were children during World War II:  those folks born in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

My earliest years in Thomson were spent on Main Street, next to the oldest house in town, Vada and Virgil Wilt’s house.  Our rental was a two-story with a wide front porch looking out over our small world:  Lewis Motors, Bub Smith’s and McBrides/Sacks groceries; restaurants under various management -  Flossie and Harold Starr,  the McCormacks, Harry and Jessie Bowders. – and Ozzie’s Barbershop, where we got a nickel for an ice cream cone when Dad got his hair cut.

Looking through old snapshots and newspaper clippings for the Sesquicentennial recalls the innocence of that time, the simple pleasures and a breezy, carefree era when the Depression had faded and the Korean War vets were home. World War II was barely in the history books.

People were still dancing to Big Band tunes and Your Hit Parade was the high point of the week.  The youth of the day were dating when the Lamplighters, the Four Freshmen, Frank Sinatra, Peggy Lee and the romantic balladeers were in their prime.  I recall the gym at the high school being full of teenagers dancing over the noon hour – I was so charmed by that, even as a child.  I wanted to be them:  teenagers in love.

The most exotic thing in the neighborhood was the parade of girls who passed through our lives:  Nancy Wilt, Roberta Williams, Norma Cate and their friends.  Carolyn and Joyce Marshall, Shirley Gordon, Vada Spencer, Donna Haas…they wore freshly pressed blouses and sharply pleated plaid skirts; or rolled up jeans and bobby sox, scarves at their necks and stars in their eyes.  They always looked to me as if they were expecting Prince Charming at any moment.

And he showed up, too.  Teenagers were grownups, for the most part.  High school was just a way station before you got married and settled down to have a family.  No question about what you’d be when you grew up:  you were already that person.  There’s a comfort in that.

And comfort in knowing how it turned out:  many of these women are still in the neighborhood, and I get to see them now and again.  Their dreams are intact – life wasn’t perfect for anyone, but they believed in love and happily ever after, and maybe were the last generation to have that blessing.  They endured.

I'm headed to my fiftieth class reunion in a week - 50 years - and it doesn't seem like yesterday, it seems like a darned long time ago.  I want these shoes.  I have a dress to match - black background with pink and white peonies.  We have a great band:  Coupe de Ville - I'm going to dance the night away, but will probably have on the flats for that.  Fifty years...a lot happened, and some stuff didn't.

Toulouse/TooLoose/ToLose

I'm sitting in the
sauna,
slathered in coconut oil,
hoping against hope that
it will prevent
stretch marks

from all the weight
i hope to lose
soon.

Hoping that to lose weight
is not to loose weight:

Toulouse, who celebrated
the generous girls
of the burley-que,
well-padded girls who
trussed like turkeys, trusted that their generous
flesh was a gift,
an erotic
wonder.

Sweat trickles between
my breasts, breasts
gleaming with sweat and oil,
and the hope that
they won't droop further
into despair.

Write your Success Story

as a poem, the Poetry and Writer's edition advised - and why not?  Creative visualization, in a manner of speaking, or writing, as it were.

We are introducing

Jan Bristol, 

our honored guest and speaker

for the evening,

whose accomplishments include

publication of several volumes 

of poetry of a contemplative nature,

 and suspect spirituality.

Jan has had a checkered past,

savored by few, 

enjoyed by any who

have read her exploits

thinly disguised as

creative

non-fiction.

Jan

has also completed a trilogy 

of novellas, a sort of

geographical 

biography

of 

girls who grew up

in humid

climates

and 

flourished.

Jan, it's all yours.

Royalty

'Remember when I was Queen?'
her brown button eyes
sparkling in her aging kewpie doll face.

'I was in that white convertible,
you know the one - Dr King had it -
it was white.'

' I beat out Kate O'Malley for Queen,'
 she recalled,
'Oh yes.' the past shining through
the reality of what was to come

to both of them, Kate O'Malley and my
sister,
brought now to living with cats and other
Former Queens,
stealing extra desserts at supper,
secreting sweets and memories
pocketed to later savor.

The bloom was off the rose, as they say,
by eighteen;
girls of easy smiles
and easy ways
in an unforgiving town.

'Gather ye rosebuds--'
I'm glad they had their day,
a youth misspent to look back upon
with glittering round brown eyes,
a wistful smile,
a pocketful of tears.

summer 1969, redux

I long ago wrote a poem about girls and summer and suntan lotion and being a size 9-10.  I re-wrote it last week, and am still working on it.  The previous title was "Missy - Size 9-10."

Here's the latest, with a new title:

Summer,  1969

'Brown fat looks better than white fat,' she said,
as we climbed onto the roof
to self-baste in the blazing Wisconsin
summer.

My friend was plump, as we used to say of
pleasingly round girls - plump
like soft pillows with
dimples in their pretty knees.

Girls with curves
and possibilities -

The sun has traced a treasure map
across the years
celebrating every sun-soaked
rooftop hour,
each golden day at the lake...

and every long-ago caress
over sun-kissed skin,
brown and slick in the summer sun.

virginia wolfe speaks through nikki giovanni - kein titel

I am a motherless child,
daughter of the moon-song,
sister of the coyote
over the ridge.

I am the song of dawn
and the morning star,
the dew like diamonds
at your feet.

I am your heart of hearts,
everything you want to be
held inside me
like a pearl.

You can go home again, but...

I reach into the pocket of my good blue wool coat, feeling the buttery black leather gloves: this coat I wear to funerals and visitations and Celebrations of Life.

I have come home, home to the world of the dead and the dying.  Every month, it seems a wake, or a celebration of a spent life, life spent in common coinage, spent in the pursuit of the Sacred Ordinary.

The bleak February sky holds the icy tentacles of winter.  I pull my coat tight around me, fit the soft gloves around each finger and step into the passed.

In Your Wildest Dreams

Listening to Leonard Cohen on a cold February late afternoon - somewhere 'between memory and a dream' (Tom Petty's phrase).  Maybe not enough coffee, maybe not enough chocolate.  Maybe, maybe.

Old friends, old dreams, old heartaches concatenate in a gypsy soul.  Can one experience a contented melancholia?  Maybe, in February.

I wish I could remember my wildest dreams - I'd see you there,
in my wildest dreams.

I'd take a tramp steamer, or a barge down to New Orleans, in my wildest dreams.

I'd live on the beach or a cabin on a lake...
I'd be dancing to the satiny light of the moon, dancing to an ancient melody,
dancing through my wildest dreams.

You'd be there, in my wildest dreams.

The February moon lies low in the cold eastern sky, shadows
across the old familiar lane
into my wildest dreams.

Serendipity

The Writer's Almanac for today informs us that the term "serendipity" was first coined in 1754.  I sit at my computer in my new house, the Virginia Wolfe House, and think of happy coincidence, unsought blessings, unexpected discoveries and abundance.

I have a deck of cards entitled "Goddess Guidance Oracle Cards" - I love these cards and pick out a card each day to contemplate.  Today's card is Rhiannon, a lunar Welsh sorceress who reminds me that I am magical and am able to manifest my intentions into reality.

It is the conjunction of serendipity and conscious intention that interests me.  What happy accidents might we unconsciously create, what spiritual wish list do we hold within our heart of hearts?  A friend recently gave me a book on 7000 ways to listen:  listen to my heart, listen to the breath of god on the wind, listen to the vast silence into which we will all someday wander.  In that silence we create a sacred space, a space of gratitude and wonder.

My life has been full of serendipity spiced with intention - the Virginia Wolfe house was found at the right time, when I needed storage space and a place to write, a retreat house.  I was adopted into a wonderful family at the age of 3 months - was I imagining this home in my infant despair?   A handsome prince came into my life unexpectedly after I spent a year writing poetry and contemplating a move to the Midwest.

Don't be afraid to wish, to dream - if it doesn't work out, you can make another wish, dream another dream.  You might find an unexpected path to wander, an unexpected silence to inform you.


"What a wonderful life I've had! I only wish I'd realized it sooner." - Colette

Ordinary Blessings

We’ve gotten through the holidays, and maybe it’s my imagination, but it seems to me we used to look forward to them, rather than hope we survive them.  There’s something seriously wrong about ads with kids trying to get their folks to buy a new car, for heaven’s sake, as a Christmas gift. 

It’s all behind us, and I’m sure Martha Stewart would not have given me a passing grade on either my Thanksgiving or Christmas table settings, but we had family together and it doesn’t get better than that.

I look out over the bleak landscape – if you can love a place in late January or early February, you’re in the right place.  The horizon blends into the fields and the snowbanks are sullied by topsoil blowing into the drifts.  Used to be, we had hedgerows and fence lines and railroad beds keeping the topsoil where it belonged.  Don’t get me started.

And in the midst of overcast skies and dirty snowbanks I think of Mr. Stearns’ gladiolus field.  We lived on West Main; two houses east of us was just the most beautiful sight you could imagine.  Mr. Stearns had an entire lot – maybe a third of an acre – in gladiolus plants.  They were glorious, elegant stems full of brilliant color, every color in your big Crayola box and maybe some that weren’t.  From our yard, you could just see the tops of those long-stemmed wonders, like a mosaic.  If you see maybe five or six together in the grocery or at a greenhouse, you’ve got to be impressed:  Mr. Stearns’ glads took up most of his lot, an awesome sight.  Sometimes we went out into Potter’s cornfield and got a look at them from there. 

Mr. and Mrs. Stearns were gentle, humble souls, and yet gave us a wonder to regard, a memory bright and heart-warming, to cherish over the years and lighten the long days of winter: the blessings of an ordinary life.