February 2024

I have good taste in men.

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I was madly in love with Robert as was half of my fourth-grade class.  He was tall, had a nice smile, and a hint of a dimple.  Plus, he didn’t look like a rock’em sock’em robot when dancing. 

None of us particularly liked the square dancing, but the boys especially seemed to hate it.  Their movements clunky and stilted and out of time.  Not so Robert.  He glided, he turned,  he dosidoed and bowed with a flourish. 

All the little girl hearts went pitter-pat when it was our turn to dance with him.  My hands were always sweaty.  I was near sick for love of him.  He wasn’t in my class.  The only time I saw him was recess, lunch, and music class which had now morphed into dancing.   I actually got to touch him – his hands and back warm and sweaty from exertion, I supposed.  I fair swooned with giddiness.

But the girls could get possessive of their Robert.  I was once elbowed out of the way so that Kelly Ann could dance with Robert.  I glared at her and tried to figure out what to do, but the teacher came over and sorted us out.  Kelly still got to dance with Robert though.  I was incensed.  It seemed to me there was a bit of sadness in his eyes at the loss of his turn dancing with me.  Dare I hope?

At Christmas time, we morphed into a musical dance act of the Twelve Days of Christmas, Hawaiian Style.  I can’t remember if it was the five golden or the eight lords a leaping, but it was redone as fill-in -the-blank cans of Primo in which Robert would pretend to take a swig and then stagger around a bit while wearing a straw hat, Hawaiian shirt, barefoot and holding a can of Primo beer – Hawaii’s own. We thought he was hysterical. 

More swooning.  He was a born actor. 

We were all military kids, referred to as brats in the military jargon, and apt to get transferred at any moment.  I don’t remember if Robert left first or I did.  But time dancing with Robert came to an end.  I thought of him often.  Wondered where he went. 

And then.  Three schools, three states, and a Pacific Ocean crossing later, he showed up in my 7th-grade homeroom.  I shyly waved hello to him.  He seemed relieved to know someone. 

Robert had changed.  He had those puberty boy legs that were too long for his body and made him look ridiculous when he tried to walk fast.  He was sporting a bad case of acne. Really bad.  And his voice was changing.  He was a mess.  And no one, not even me, was in love with him.  But he became my friend in homeroom.  Protected me from the pranks of the other boys.  And was the first to tell me I had bled through my dress and that he was going to walk right behind me to the girls’ bathroom.  Seems Robert had sisters.  Nothing fazed him. 

Robert, I’m certain, grew from a caring boy to a gentleman. I’m sure he outgrew the acne. I’m sure he is tall. And I’m sure that he cares for and protects the person that is his partner. Robert was a class act in 4th grade and again in 7th grade. I have no doubt that he’s a class act now. I had good taste in men even in the way-back, but I’ve outdone myself with The Consort. He’s a peach.

Maisie Anne The Fae

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Maisie Anne O’Keefe looked to be Black Irish – that sumptuous result of Spanish DNA and Irish DNA colliding, but in reality she was Scots. 

Upon her birth, both parents looked at the other and said, “This wee one does not have red hair.”  Both were present at the home birth, or they might have wondered if babies had been confused in the nursery. Maisie Anne was the 7th daughter of a 7th son and and the 7th daughter of a 7th daughter.  Gossip had been rife throughout Adelaide’s pregnancy.  This child is fae, the village folk whispered.

And indeed, Maisie Anne O’Keefe grew into the reputation the village folk had invoked with their words.

Art by Paula Belle Flores

While still small, she exhibited an affinity for and a bond with birds.  Any time she left the cottage, the birds would gather about her.  As they grew bolder, they would perch on her shoulders, her hands, her arms, and even her black tresses.  As time went by, they began gathering at her doorway each morning eager for her exit. 

She kept seeds and whatnot in a pouch tied about her waist and she would feed the birds as she walked to the shoppe in the square where she served tea.

One winter began early and was fierce.  The snows came and stayed and she didn’t have enough seed on hand to adequately feed all the birds that waited outside her door.  She feared for the birds though she wasn’t usually prone to fear.  The birds, the villagers whispered, were her familiars.  Maisie Anne thought of them as her children as the years had gone by and would-be suitors were too intimidated to woo her.  Her parents had died, and her siblings had scattered.  She alone lived in the cottage and had meager means.

That evening she set to with the saw her father had used as well as his hammers and nails.  She needed a warmer hat and the birds needed shelter from the cold.  When she was almost done, she went outside, perched the ladder to the side of the cottage, climbed up, and grabbed some straw.  The cottage had been fresh thatched that autumn and the straw was almost pristine.

When she was done, she had a hat of branches, straw, and wood for the birds to use for warmth.  They flocked to her in numbers the villagers had never seen.  When they asked Maisie Anne what she had done, she replied that she couldn’t keep them from starving, but she could keep them warm.

The following morning, Maisie Anne left the cottage sporting her hat and discovered that during the night the villagers had left bags and bags of seed for the birds and provisions for Maisie Anne.

She and her hat became a spectacle each and every winter from that time forward.  Tourists came from miles around to see the fae0 one feed and shelter the birds.  The tea shoppe did very well with the added custom and Maisie Anne’s wages were increased, but still the villagers provided for her and the birds. 

A Song of Wanderlust

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My heart sings a song of wanderlust – a desire for the exotic, the unfamiliar, a need to feel like the other and not the I. 

Home, though delightful, feels heavy these days.

These walls are solid and safe, well known every inch.

I long for the strange. 

Photo by Mark Tryapichnikov on Unsplash

I long for unexpected angles and curves, passages that take me to vistas unimagined.   I want us to be a couple on a rue in Paris, a calle in Barcelona, an alley in Istanbul.  Walking where feet have trod for hundreds and hundreds of years – not just a couple of centuries. I want to curl up with you in a glass igloo in Norway and watch the northern lights. I want to hold your hand in a bure in Fiji, the thatch rustling0 in the ocean breeze.

I want architecture that begs for our attention and the camera’s lens.  Adobe, stucco, marble.  People who walk differently and speak in a tongue I can’t understand.  I want to eat food I’ve never had in Afghanistan, drink liqueurs with the locals in Greece, and witness the traumatic running of the bulls.  I want to struggle with the language when asking a stranger to take our photo.  Though we are disheveled and jet-lagged, you will put your arm around me and we will smile for the camera capturing our joy in the moment.

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The day the statues came to life.

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I realized there was something inherently strange about the way my mom’s brain works when she was about 35.  Maybe 40.  Someone told her a joke.  The joke goes like this…. 

Photo by Alano Oliveira on Unsplash

There was a statue of Adam and Eve in a public garden.  They had stood there for a hundred years.  Unable to speak.  Unable to touch.  Unable to keep one another warm in the snow.  Year after year, they stood there.  The snow came and went.  The rain.  The hot sun.  Pigeons and squirrels.  Mold and mildew. 

By the time we get to the magical day, they were worn and pitted, spotted with pigeon shit, and generally in poor condition. A woodland fairy appears and tells them she is going to bring them to life for one day and for one day only.  They can do anything they like.  She gives them 24 hours to think about how they will spend their day. 

At dawn, the following morning the fairy appears, says an incantation, waves her wand and the two statues come to life.  Adam and Eve jump around in excitement, oblivious of their nakedness, and babble incoherently.  Finally, they settle down and Adam says to Eve, “What shall we do?  What have you most wanted all these years?  Adam has a sly tone of voice and winks at Eve. 

Eve says, “OK.  Here’s the plan.  You hold the pigeons and I’ll shit on them.” 

Now I happened to be there when this joke was being told.  I rolled my eyes.  My mother laughed.  And laughed.  She spurts her coffee all over the diner table and nearly choked to death she laughed so hard.  Tears coursed down her face, and she had to fan herself. 

My mother’s reaction to the joke was far funnier than the joke itself. 

Later that evening, we are sitting at the dinner table.  My Dad asks how our day was.  We all report on this and that.  Eventually, Mom says, “Dean told a joke at lunch today.  Wanna hear it?”  My dad girded his loins. My mother’s inability to tell a joke without screwing up the punch line is legendary.  In fact, I get my joke telling ability from her.  I too tend to screw them up.  Just typing the above joke was difficult. 

Anyway. 

My mother launches into the joke, looking at me now and again to check details.  I am astonished, but she is doing a pretty good job.  My dad is sort of puzzled.  The joke does not seem to be the kind of joke my mom would normally enjoy.  My mother is a Prude with a capital P in red glitter.  She finally gets to the part where Adam is getting ready to say, “What shall we do?” 

She starts to giggle.  And then shake.  Peas fall off her fork.  She starts laughing in earnest.  She is laughing so hard, she cannot finish.  I start laughing at her trying to tell this joke.  My father, a superb joke teller, is now all ears.  He wants the punch line.  He needs the punch line.  He’s already making plans on who and when to tell the joke to. 

By now, neither my mom nor I can breathe we are laughing so hard.  I try to take a drink of water to sort myself out.  I spew it all over the pork chops.   

Mom can’t finish.  Dad is amused, but impatient.  “So, what’s the punch line?”  My mom waves her arms and looks at me to deliver the last line.  I still can’t breathe.   

Finally, I manage to choke out, “You hold the pigeons and I’ll shit on them.”  Only I said poop because at that age I would not have said shit in front of my parents. 

My mother absolutely collapses in hysterics.  For her, it’s even funnier the second time.  My brother, who is just a kid, laughs.   

My dad just looks at us.  I try to explain that I didn’t think it funny either that I’m laughing at my mother, but by then, he’s laughing at the both of us. 

I reminded my mother of this joke a while back.  It took a while for her to dredge up the memory.  And she almost had it, but couldn’t remember the joke or the punchline  — she just remembered the two statues coming to life and how it was the funniest damn thing she’d ever heard.   

So.  I told her the joke.  Without messing up the punchline. 

She chortled.  She howled.  She had tears in her eyes and couldn’t breathe.   

Again.   

I laughed at her.  I laughed with her. We both just laughed.