My essay about match.com was published over the weekend. I am shamelessly going to pass it along to you and ask that you read it, share it, pass it along to whom ever you might think will read it too. 

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/07/meeting-my-match/

A Nod to the North

Take a Chance. That was the name of my horse my Grandfather bought for me when I was 12. My Grandfather was dying and I was in midst of a good old fashioned case of family craziness and starting to like boys. Looking back on it now I think it was his attempt to save us both from inevitable heart ache. I wish it had worked.

I had a few months of riding lessons, 4H, and a new best friend, Casey, who had horses at her house, all under my belt. Those credentials made my pea sized pre-adolescent brain think I knew most everything there was to know about horses. Oh my dear Papa. He was so generous with us kids and genuinely took an interest in my new hobby. He rode right along beside me wearing his fedora as I talked my way into owning this little mare.

Turns out taking a chance on Chancey was not a chance I was ready to take. It wasn't so bad getting thrown off almost every time I rode her. I was young and bounceable. I always got right back on. It was more Chancey's random acts of violence that left me paralyzed with fear and afraid to be near her.

I was bit, kicked, chased around, spit at and made a fool of. By the time I admitted I was in over my head and she was sold I had already experienced several anxiety attacks. I didn't know they were anxiety attacks at the time. I just thought I was dying of humiliation. I wrote a last will and testament one night when my heart was pounding and I couldn't breathe. Oh what I would give to stumble upon that piece of tear stained paper today. I am fairly certain I left my prized possessions, an REO Speedwagon album and Honey Suckle Rose t-shirt to my sister Kelly. The rest must have read like a confession - what else did I have? A half dozen different flavors of Maybelline lip gloss and a bottle of Love's Baby Soft?

That was it for me and horses for a while. I dedicated some of the next 25 years to being chased around, spit at and made a fool of by boys instead. Considering that the boys I knew never bit or kicked, it all felt much safer.

Lucky for me Lily showed an interest in horses and over the past few years I have been able to spend a lot of time around them again and I am happy to still feel drawn to what I loved about horses all those years ago. I love to brush them. I love the way they smell. I love that the smell of sweet grain and molasses still reminds me of my friend Casey. I love that I have a healthy respect for how powerful they are. I love that I am around people who are teaching me (and answer all of my seemingly stupid questions) about all of the things that I wished I had learned when I was 12. But most of all, I love that I am not afraid anymore. I have a horse named North to thank for that.

I babysit North once in a while. The only things I have to do are bring him in and out of the pasture, feed him and love him. He is so big. So powerful. So beautiful. So much like a punk teenaged boy with an attention deficit disorder that he frightened me at first and made me wonder if maybe I would be safer being an admirer of horses from the sidelines. Or better yet, watching them on TV. That is not who I want to be though. I don't want to watch from the sidelines. I don't want to be afraid of anything anymore. I want to ride again. So I clip his crazy ass to the lead rope and keep on walking.

I nod to North. He is the best thing that has happened to me in years.
I nod to the therapist who stopped the anxiety attacks.
I nod in the northernly direction of heaven to my Papa with my deepest love. I moved on.

Dear 2013

Dear 2013,

  

I will walk outside during my lunch break just to feel the sun on my face and quiet my mind.

I will slow down and listen better when someone is talking.

I will be the best Mother, Sister, Daughter and Friend that I can be. If I say something stupid or hurt anyones feelings I promise I will say I am sorry. I know my way isn't the right way, it's only the right way for me so i'll keep my heart and mind open to how everyone else takes care of business. 

I will nourish my body with healthy, organic and local food whenever I can. And when I can't, I will accept the fact that I just ate a whole bag of potato chips and french onion dip with as little self loathing as possible and will continue to pray for a cure for the insatiable junk food hunger that comes with my period. Menopause can not be too far away and I'm pretty sure I would rather have a potato chip hangover than rogue facial hair and hot flashes. 

I will try to not be intimidated to be in a stall alone with a horse. 

I will always remember that 2 vodka martini's are my limit. Any more than that requires a babysitter. I am too old for a babysitter and unexplained bruising. 

I will try to remember how crappy eating sugar makes me feel before I eat it.

I will stop trying on jeans and accept the fact that I don't like how they feel or how they make my butt look. I am a skirt person. 

I will write when I feel inspired and hopefully will feel inspired everyday. If not, it's ok. Seriously. 

I will rename this blog. And myself. 

I will try not to revisit things I say good bye to. There is a very good chance that once in a while I am going to have a cup of coffee even tho I parted ways with my dark roasted love in 2012. I know I will hold the cup with both hands and deeply inhale the aroma while I close my eyes and take a sip. And then, in a half hour when my heart starts pounding and my cheeks are flushed I will try not panic, contemplate going to the emergency room or consider the purchase of a defibrillator to carry around in my oversized purse. I will remember remember why we parted ways. We aren't good for each other any more. 

Liza Bean

Liza Bean, my cat, is 20 years old. Her black fur is losing its luster. She sleeps 20 hours a day and doesn't hear when I call her name. At night she lays by my pillow and only gets up to vomit a fur ball at the side of my bed. It's sad to watch her slow down and become an old cat.
So, imagine my surprise this morning when she was playful, chasing her tail around the bed before the alarm went off. I reached over to give her a pat on the head, my plea to go back to sleep for a bit until the sun starts to come up and there it was, in bed with us, still alive and ready to run…a mouse.
I screamed. She ran. The mouse flew in the air as I threw the blankets. I turned the light on, grabbed a flip flop for protection and ever so gingerly tip toed around my bedroom in search of a mouse. It was frightened and wounded in the corner. I let Liza chase it into the closet and I sat on the edge of my bed, questioning once again if I am capable of living by myself.
I may never sleep again. Which is fine, it gives me plenty of time to think about how to get the mouse out of my closet.

The Cicada. Linoleum block print.

I found a dead cicada and brought it home to sit on my windowsill next to a tomato that needs a little more sunshine to ripen. His iridescent wings are still beautiful. The prehistoric looking shell of a body and beady eyes are perfectly intact.

I don't know how to tell if it is a male or a female. I'm pretending it is a male. It seems more romantic. Only the male Cicada sings. I like singers. Especially human male singers. I don't date them anymore though. Dating a Cicada would be much less burdensome. And they are more likely to be eaten by a squirrel or deep fried.  That is a more heroic way to end a friendship.

As it is, this singer that sits on my windowsill is perfect. He's already dead.

Old Home Days

Before leaving the house and walking to the park for the field days I had Lily wash the mascara off her eyes. After all these years together I was stunned that she actually thought that she could get that past me. Then there was the Daisy Duke hot shorts issue. Roll them down so that it doesn't look like you are wearing bikini bottoms or put sweats pants on. Two easy choices. Both of which triggered eye rolling, grunting and deep loathsome sighs.

Someone recently told me 11 is the new 14. I get it now.
Let the games begin.

Samuel Brown

Written for a writing contest - Had to be 600 hundred words or less,
start with the sentence "Some people swore that the house was haunted" and end with the sentence "Nothing was ever the same again after that".
I didn't win the contest but I did get rid of a ghost.




Samuel Brown


Some people swore that the house was haunted. I lived there. I knew it
was. And I knew the ghost by name. Samuel Brown.

His eyes were still open when they wheeled his body past me. His head
turned slightly to look at me and I imagined it was to acknowledge
what we just went through together. Then he was gone. I shivered and
pulled my bathrobe up to cover my neck even though I wasn’t cold.
Sweet Jesus, I thought, I’m never going to be able to sleep with the
lights off again.

I heard the stairs creak and was happy that Lulu didn’t wake up during
any of the chaos. “What are you doing out here in your pajamas Mama?”
she asked as she crawled up onto my lap. I smelled her hair and kissed
her tangled bed head and felt the instant comfort of something that
felt ordinary. I didn’t want to scare her and tell her that Samuel had
just died so I shrugged and said “Nothing Baby, it’s just a nice
morning so I thought I would have my coffee out here.”

We sat there on the top step of the porch in silence watching the fog
start to lift off the pond. It really would have been a nice morning
had it not been for the dead guy. Lulu stretched and yawned and put
her arms around my neck.
“Is today Sunday Mama?”
“Yup.”
“Can we have chocolate chip pancakes then?”
“Yeah Sweetie, just not here. Let’s go to the diner instead.”

It all felt so wrong. Everyone at the diner was going about his or her
morning as usual. I just held a man’s hand while he died. Shouldn’t
the flags be flying at half-staff? Shouldn’t people be weeping and
telling stories about the heroic adventures of Samuel Brown? Couldn’t
people tell by my eyes that I had just witnessed a tragedy? Samuel
shouldn’t have died naked on the bathroom floor with someone he barely
knew holding his hand, whispering that everything was going to be ok
when really I knew that one of these rattling shallow breaths was
going to be his last.

For years now the space below me where he lived has been empty. The
For Rent sign is yellow and warped around the edges. The talk around
town is that no one will live there because of the way your hair feels
like it stands on end when you walk in the bathroom and that the
lights turn on and off by themselves. I know it’s all true. I see it
happening. Sometimes I think I hear him down there humming to himself
but I don’t mind anymore that his spirit isn’t ready to leave yet. I
think I would want to stick around if I had the choice too.

I thought about dying of cancer for a long time after that. I worried
that every ache or cough was going to be my death sentence. I talked
to my therapist until she somehow found a way to blame my paranoia on
my Mother and then it stopped. I wasn’t scared anymore. I could sleep
with the lights off. But I was never the same person again that I was
that Sunday morning when I sat with Samuel Brown while he died.
Nothing was ever the same again after that.