If I take this shot, will it have all been worth it? Will it be worth it? Will it be the end, or another beginning? I’m beginning to-. No, I’m fine. I swear I’m fine. When she finds me by my lonesome, I am asleep under a blanket, book still in hand. Or I quickly wipe away the tear; no crying, no tears shed. No time for sadness; only writing, reading, and reflecting. But sadness is-. No, I will not think it. Allow myself to feel it. For, it feels like desertion, or a type of rejection. Conjuring images of everyone who cast doubts like harpoons, hoping to real in my dreams. Have they already won? I dream of riches and treasure; are they material or spiritual? Trips to Disney or precious moments with my children? My heart yearns for the latter; though I cannot shake wishing for the former.
Poisonous. Gaseous. Cancerous. Asphyxiation. This thing affixed to my mind, clouding my judgment. Holding my soul hostage. How can it be? I am well read; which matters only that I know all of the cliches: Time waits for no one…Search for inner peace…Fear of failure… As though those words will make me feel better about walking the dog on a Saturday morning, then washing the kitchen stove, only to change my clothes and cut the grass, before rushing off to baseball, wondering if I told my son I love him enough; showed him how to catch well enough; gave him positive encouragement enough, so that he could pursue he dreams of playing in the pros. My mind adrift as to whether I missed a patch of grass for the adult-party we’ll have tomorrow; if the lawn feels like luscious carpet underneath my daughter’s feet. While my youngest son wants to speak of imagined toys and characters and so I try shutting my inner thoughts and immerse myself, with him, in the clouds floating, carelessly, above us.
And will I be enough? Strength. Resolve. Masculine. Feminine. Patient. Role model. Care giver. All of the things I had; and all of the things I had not. Like flying into space just to get closer to the sun. When a trip to the beach would do the same. But I do no like the beach – too much sun and too much water. Well, who can say if I am enough? I do not hear the compliments. They play above me like elevator music, in the background, in the distance. For the ambiance of it all. To set the scene; make it feel less lonely, more humane. Like the human connection of a gentle embrace. Or a mother wiping away a child’s tears. A sister reassuring her brother that it was all a dream; that he could sleep in her bed; but only tonight…and the next night…and the next night…and the next.
Family. Is that my shot? Family. The embrace for which I am hoping? Typing fearlessly. Vulnerabilities galore. I kid not.
The speedometer cruises
Foot sitting softly on the pedal
Accelerating gently
Oh so gently!
Moving forward through daily life
Cruise control keeps you constrained
0 and 25 miles per hour
No words exchanged as we fall asleep
It’s just after nine o’clock
We lie next to each other, annoyed by warm breadths
Barely indulging in life, barely experiencing each other, barely moving,
At just two miles per hour
Leave for work with a peck on the lips –
The kind one might grace a grandmother’s cheek with –
Ups the speed to five
Garage door opening in the late afternoon after a long day
Lips brush, once again, against mine
Six
Folding the kids in your arms
Twenty-one
Damn. What that must feel like.
That first sip of wine after a hell-of-a week
Seventy-five
The sweet taste of triumph and victory and success
And letting go of drama at work and kids’ whines and unreturned phone calls from friends
That second sip
(Even) sweeter than the first
Steel-aged Chardonnay with magical powers
Lifting the weight of life from your weary shoulders
And your laughter becomes giddy again
As you zoom along at 90 miles per hour.
Again I wonder – what that must feel like.
That smile still planted on your face
Still talking, your words soon drift off in the distance…
Another night when I know what two feels like
Excitement peaks in your voice unexpectedly –
Friends calling, needing a girls night
A smile stretches from ear to ear
As you zoom throughout our home, excitedly; over 85 miles per hour.
Funny stories
Pouring wine
Jokes about the husbands
The giggle bug jumping in and out
Laughter so infection it lasts for days,
Even as you return to the monotony of married life
I cry a little bit inside as you make plans of hot tubs, wine pairings, staying up past midnight
I know you will come home exhausted –
Your voice hoarse from laughing so hard
Your face aching from smiling even harder still
Perhaps a bruise on your thigh from a fall
The story only your friends find funny
Bags under your eyes
Coming down off a high –
And damn what I wouldn’t give to experience one thousand miles per hour with you.
Laughing, uncontrollably at the humor of favorite movie lines;
Glasses clank glasses and bottles of wine.
Dancing to music that does not play;
Regaling each other with our firsts –
First kiss first dance first fight and how silly it is now
The time we did that thing in that place with those people watching.
Pop! goes another bottle of wine
This time, the special wine
We swore we’d only open to celebrate something special…
Like a thou-?
Experiencing life with me.
With me,
While on a high.
Hearts racing at a thousand.
I wonder if that is what it feels like.
The wind hurries past trees – branches sway left, then, right
The bright blue sky turns pale as it approaches the horizon
Sun rays illuminate thick white patches of clouds that float by
We lay hand-in-hand, basking in our final moments together
There is much ado as we part ways, as tears streak down young faces
We embrace, wrapping limb around limb
And squeezing, until a piece of our hearts have seeped inside each other’s
Oh, how time passes much like the wind – alas, it will not stand still –
Knowing not the massive tree trunks that are our good times,
It continues to fly; hurrying along to bring but a puddle of rain,
And then, always, bright blue skies that turn pale.
Sadly, for now, you exist only in vivid memories that I recall
A blue jay sails through the sky, and again, I’m reminded of you.
I wonder if he hears my song, and if he’ll deliver to you my message?
The wind blows again; candy wrappers from nearby children glide in the air
And my recollections are carried away too.
In a white skirt that you hold against your thighs whenever the wind gusts by.
Oh, how I dream, to be the wind,
Just to see your soft thighs that thicken beyond your skirt’s hem;
Meeting the bikini that caresses the softness and roundness of your ass –
How voluptuous indeed I know your ass to be.
Oh, I only wish that I was the wind, so that I could be closer to you
I see you so vividly (that I wonder if you can see me too) wearing a white tank top,
That you hold against your bosom whenever the wind blows,
Freeing the napkin from you fingers, as you kneel to retrieve it.
Oh, how I dream to be the wind,
Just to be able to sail through your shirt,
And catch a whiff of your feminine scent radiating from your bosom
I think of your breasts – the dual mounds of succulent flesh
Held firmly against your chest by your lacey bra, bright and white, peeking through.
How voluptuous indeed I know your breasts to be,
And I wish that I was the wind.
A patch of clouds eclipses the sun and the trees stand still.
Has the blue jay delivered my message yet?
Chirps ring in the distance – birds exclaim their love through song
Mild blue skies are on the horizon; I wonder where the wind hath gone
And I still wish that I were the wind –
To disappear in your presence and hear the gayness in your laughter
And feel the vivacity you display when animated;
To dance with you to the blue jays’ melodies resonating in the distance;
To be magnetized and blinded by your love, just as I am by the sun;
To fly through the curls and waves in your hair;
To brush against your lips, and caress you;
To stop suddenly, and gaze into your eyes, and peer into your soul;
Cradling your heart in my arms, but for a moment;
Then being swept away, leaving a love note reverberating in your ears; To be near you, to be the wind, just for a moment.