Anything can be. Aren’t those lovely words? Strictly speaking, they’re not true – there are some things I just can’t be. I can’t be an astronaut, Miss America, or a brain surgeon. But there are so many things that I can do. All my life, I wanted to be a writer. I said I would write when this or that eased up, or when I had something to say, or after my child was grown, or I didn’t have to work any long, or or or.
Continue readingI want to walk hand-in-hand in a forest with you on a late afternoon in September. We’ll wear comfortable shoes and jeans along with light jackets.
I want to watch the wind scuttle leaves across the path and catch the sighting of deer and teenage fawns;
The golden light is prisming through the trees and the light will catch your eyes like the radiance of a halo, magical and ethereal.
I want to walk along the river in silence stopping now and again to skim a stone or savor your lips. I want to be wrapped in your arms as the air chills on the shore–and the wind kicks up.
I want to sit with you on a sofa in a cabin, cocooned in blankets and drinking mulled cider with a sliced candied apple on a stoneware plate making our fingers sticky–Mozart’s Jupiter wafting in the air, soft and sweet, rising, falling and then soaring.
I want to wrap you with my naked body and murmur in your ear all my secret longings.
I want you.
I stared at my beautiful, evil wife and realized the horror had only just begun.
Sabrina was gorgeous, like her name, in that mid 1960s way — full-bodied, statuesque, thick glossy black hair and impossible blue eyes. She was what the old folks called Black Irish — that mating of the Spaniards with the Irish during the Spanish Armada.
I had been woefully unprepared for life with her, having married a scant two weeks after meeting. I was besotted. Another old-fashioned word, but it is the only one that will do.
Asleep, I had felt that uncomfortable sensation of being examined. I rolled over and she was glaring at me – knife in hand.
Sabrina! What the hell! What are you doing?
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Growing up, we called it hamburger and rice. Hamburger browned in a skillet. Uncle Ben’s Converted Rice made according to the directions on the box. The two ingredients are mixed together and served with salt, pepper, margarine, and a squeezable plastic lemon full of concentrated juice.
My dad grew up impoverished and hamburger and rice, often without lemon, was a staple. Once he became a private in the Marine Corps, the meal became standard end-of-the-month fare. We continued to have it throughout my childhood and early adulthood.
When I left home, I continued to make it. It’s a favorite.
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W. Va. Fur and Root 