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Attaché

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I’d been trying to decide for weeks.  Or was it months?  It was the not deciding that was driving me nuts.  Should I or shouldn’t I?

The situation would never change unless I did something about it.  I went to sleep thinking about everything that was wrong and how it could be fixed.  When I woke, those same thoughts just continued on.  It was beginning to wear me out.

This could be resolved.  All I had to do was make a decision.

It didn’t start out so difficult.  Oh, sure, we had our differences.  Any two beings do, when they are required to work closely together and are thrown into a high pressure situation.

In the beginning, I was quite taken with the idea of a co-conspirator, or a collaborator, if you will.  What fun we could have being creative together.  We both had so much to offer.

I imagined the acclaim we would receive for our stunning performance.  Had any duo accomplished such sterling results?  None.  That I could think of.  Why, there could be honors and bonuses and perks and acclaim.  Wealth, perhaps.

The awards ceremony would be a night of glittering gowns and stylish tuxedos, flowing champagne, caviar and lobster, all beneath bright chandeliers.  Wonderful music would soar through the crowd, swirl around the vaulted ceilings, trill up the circular staircase and waft out among the stars.  All of it pointing to our success, our great, divine partnership.

People would talk for days about how worthy we were of our rewards.  They would go on and on about our uniqueness, our stunning beauty, our ability to thrill a crowd, our skill in bringing pleasure and enjoyment to the masses.  I saw it all in my vision of our future together.

I was holding up my part of the bargain.  I was groomed and pampered and manicured and styled and dressed for perfection.  I made the sacrifices for beauty.  I did what it took to keep my hour-glass figure.  I endured all the beauty treatments.  I knew my part.  I was superlative in my part.  I practiced my art and I was a master.

My partner, however, had become the bane of my existence.  He flaunted his beauty constantly, stepping on my toes and over my lines.  He didn’t share the limelight but hogged the show.  His voice was quite a terrible screech and so loud!

He had to go.  That was all there was to it.  Of course, there would be the reduction in novelty appeal without him.  There would be a risk in changing the show, but really, when you’re an entertainer and you’ve lost the attention of the crowd, well, clearly, something must be done.  Only one of us could survive this and I was determined it would not be that bird.  It would be me.

I had the solution.  All I had to do was make the call.  I picked up the business card from my dressing table,

FREDERICK ROTHSCHILD
Cultural Attaché to the Stars
Fixer – Problem Solver
1- 976-415-9862

I would do it.  I picked up the phone and dialed.

“Mr. Rothschild,” I used my most charming stage voice, “this is Mademoiselle Charmaine.  I need you to get rid of the peacock that’s in my act.  That stupid bird is ruining my fan dance.”

Wish

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image source:Bing images

image source:Bing images

I was covered with dust and grime from digging through boxes in the garage when I found the one marked TOYS. Using a Swiffer cloth, I wiped off the small box and my hands.  What toys did we have that Mother would have saved and that Daddy would have tucked into the tightly stacked boxes on the shelving in the garage eaves?  We never had the money to buy anything expensive that would be worth keeping, so I couldn’t think what it could be.  I peeled away the packing and memories flooded my mind.

I was ten years old.  We had just moved from the San Fernando Valley to Simi Valley at the foot of the Simi Hills, close to Daddy’s new job testing rocket fuels at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory.  Any money that Christmas season would go towards a modest Christmas dinner.  If there were any gifts, they would have to be handmade.

The weeks when Daddy and my two brothers spent time at night in the garage while my sister and I worked with Mother in the house to create something for Christmas seemed an eternity.  What could they be making for us?  There were many things I could wish for, but nothing I could think of equaled the sound of tools and the secrecy that barred us from the garage.

image source:Bing images

image source:Bing images

At last the day arrived and we gathered in the living room, around the spindly tree covered with one string of fat bulbs, lit in alternating red, blue, green, yellow and white; silver tinsel carefully spread strand by strand over the tree, a red construction paper chain and a few cardboard and construction paper figures we had made.  Mother had carefully kept a box of shiny Christmas ornaments.  We treated them like they were gold.  It was beautiful and mysterious.  We read the Christmas story of Jesus’ birth and then opened our gifts.

The gift from Daddy and my brothers to my seven year old sister and I was miniature doll furniture.  Wooden and handmade.  I was mesmerized.  This was a better wish than I could have dreamed up on my own.  The detail, the time, the beauty of the craft it took to create small works of art. I was overcome with joy and happiness.  It didn’t matter that we had no dolls small enough to play with on this miniature furniture.

image source:Bing images

image source:Bing images

“You made these?” I asked Daddy. “Did the boys help?”

“Yes, sweetheart,” Daddy’s eyes twinkled, “we worked together.”

All these years later as I stand in the garage and look at those labors of love and ingenuity, I am again overcome and need to share it.  I dig my cellphone out of my pocket and tap on my sister’s number, 500 miles to the north.

“I just found the gift from one of my favorite Christmases,” I said when she answered.  “The miniature furniture Daddy and the boys made for us in Simi Valley.  Remember?”

“Not now, Kenzie,” my sister said to her great-granddaughter, then back into the phone, “that stuff they made for us?  The worst Christmas ever!”

We talked and remembered and laughed and got caught up on current emergencies and challenges and said good-bye.

I sat in the dirty garage fingering those small pieces.  Funny how the same family experience can be so different, sibling to sibling.  I still felt the wonder of a Christmas wish that had no name, the beauty of just us six, our little oasis of love and security, wrapped in our own swaddling clothes of family working together, laid in the manger of belief and trust.

It was a wish I never knew I’d made but it was lived out by my big, strong Daddy who made Christmas beautiful for me and by the special treat of Mother’s Christmas turkey that was always delicious; it was the love we had that turned out to be the greatest wish.  It lived on as my brothers and sister built Christmas traditions with their families that in some form continue what we six had.  It still lives on even though Daddy is now gone and Mother’s strength is waning so that I do most of the Christmas turkey.  It lives on in eternity because it is the wish of the love and mystery and beauty of Christmas.

Oral Surgery

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She looked vulnerable. Her face as pale as her cream colored sweater, the gauze the dental assistant had placed in her mouth, in an effort to stem any blood from the holes where one rotted tooth and two broken off teeth had been, was half in her mouth, half pushing against her lower lip. It made her lips lopsided and puffed out. She seemed hazy, woozy, not alert; though she didn’t appear to be confused about where she was and who I was. They had her in a wheelchair in the hallway beyond the alcove with the surgery table. She was hunched over, more so than usual, and when she spoke, the garbled sound startled me.

My memory’s veil parted to inject reality with jumbled scenes of hospitals and pharmacies and doctor trips that litter weeks and months of calendars. Loss of weight fading into frailty; acquiescence to the inevitable; slipping away from activity to bed days; from determination to make her favorite foods to barely swallowing; from moving through slow paced days, dressed in clean and matching clothes with hair coiffed, to no longer giving me repeated instructions on how to launder the clothes. Well, that last part might not be so bad.

As I came closer, she removed the soiled gauze for a new piece and spoke clearly. What a relief. The curtain to full-time caregiving closed. I breathed again and felt my insides relax. Hold your horses, imagination; we’re not down that road yet. So it appears. Thank God.

She was groggy all the way home, even though she spoke clearly and appeared aware of her surroundings. Appearances can be deceiving, don’t you know. Later she asked me about the trip home. Did we stop at the pharmacy? Yes. Did she remember we stopped at Armstrong Nursery since were right there on the same street? No. Did she remember we got her a slushy? No, she said as she looked at the slushy cup on the table in front of her.

“That was a breeze,” she kept saying. “Why did I worry so?”

“Yep. Getting knocked out is the best way to go,” I said, laying out her pain pill and antibiotic next to her water bottle.

She slept a lot the rest of that day. Spent several hours in the recliner with her feet elevated. Left the TV off. That’s a major difference for her, believe me.

There was something else that was gone, as well as those three teeth. In their place she had a lightness of spirit. Like looking at life refreshed, looking at life renewed, with clearer eyes, clearer vision, clearer joy.

The next morning her chin was purple. Just on the one side. Like an outside mark of what had gone on inside. Maybe life should be like that. A quick mark on the outside. A tale-tell hint that shouts,

Mother

Mother

“Hey, something has happened on my inside!”

Maybe solutions would be found faster. Maybe we’d make choices with care if the results appeared on our faces that soon. Maybe we’d face the truth head-on if we could see with that clarity. Maybe we’d see the signals for what they are. Danger. Road washed out ahead.

Maybe not.

Of course, the hints are there. Have been. They’re left by history, by all of mankind before us. Take poison and you’ll die. Treat yourself well and then treat others well and you’ll leave a legacy of care. It’s not difficult to understand. It’s not rocket science. It’s just hard. Hard to trust. Hard to believe. Hard to act. Hard to give.

That where Mother was. She found it hard to see through the unknown of oral surgery all the way to belief. When it was all finished, except for the bruising, she said, “God took care of me.”

He does. He puts up the signposts. He’s the one standing just beyond the fog of today. He’s offered help. He’s ready to give it.

I get that in my head. I want to get it in my heart. I want God to be my first go-to guy. I want to know I don’t need to see through the fog to be at peace. I’m asking for help here, God. Help me see through the unknowns, God. Help me reach out, God, all the way to you.

Age trumps…

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image source:Bing images

image source:Bing images

Spring.
84°F today.
Some places still
sleep in their winter.
It’s only March.

Spring, on my
dark, warm street.
It’s only 8:30 p.m.
Enough time later for
night’s cool
crocodile breath.

Sprinkler heads won’t
pop-up.
I pull, urging water
pressure on.
Finish the job.

Eureka!
Wet hands and feet.

I don’t shiver.
The day’s warm breath
that warmed the house.
means an easy task.

Nearly 80° inside.
Cooler out now.

“Close the door.”
She says.
She wears
pants, socks, shoes,
blouse, undershirt,
sweater, heavy lap blanket
over her legs,
light blanket around her
shoulders.

“I’m cold.”
She says.

She’s 86.
Age trumps 80°F.

Fly, Soul, Fly

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image source:Bing images

Stacked up newspapers
wait to be devoured.

Mother doesn’t do computers.
She’s old school.
She reaches to touch paper;
devour crosswords,
comics, recipes, an
historic article, anything
fauna or flora.

I take the pages up
one by one,
turn my fingers black.

Images flash, letters scramble,
words jolt. Stories full.
Big desire,
small attainment;
huge graft born of petty theft.
My eyes cross.

He suffers. She kills;
a dog is maimed,
orators promise,
a bird goes extinct,
blood flows,
a nation crumbles,
an infant cries,
an Oscar is won.
A child is sold in slavery.
Solutions hollow out.

Can I still breathe?
I’d swallow
if it would just go down.

His or her
way is as good as mine,
so they say.
Live and let live.
Yeah, dude.
Coalesce, co-exist.
It’s all the same.
We all die, right?

Mist in my eyes
bathes the trying of
life’s whirly cesspool.
I can’t read any more of this.

Just what has all this
inky pontification
to do with rescue,
relief,
regard,
reality?

On its own,
I see no freedom;
no fleeing the downward
pull of self
in this avalanche of
worlds and words.

Yet, still we drown in
the futility of trying.

Is there not some point?
Is there not a higher need?
Fly soul, fly.

image: google images

image source: google images

Is there not a bigger resource,
Is there not a healer
greater than life?
Fly, soul, fly.

Is there not a bigger help
than this spinning ball’s
undertow?
Fly, soul, fly.

I think I see a glimmer of
a grand design in
care for the
stray,
damaged,
irreparable.
Yes, there it is.

Fly, soul, fly.
Back to the start,
back to when it was beautiful;
back to the beginner,
back to the one who started it
all.

Hey, I hear you, skeptic.
You’re right, those who
seek a higher power
should be mocked;
unless that power can
eradicate
transform
transfigure
illuminate.
You with me?

Fly, soul, fly.
I admit I’m helpless;
any help must come to me;
from the eternal.

Fly, soul, fly.
I cry; I yearn.
Wash my soul, I plead.
Clean the black off my fingers;
dry the mist of my eyes;
open them to the beauty
of him who loves purely,
of him who can more than
repair
reclaim
rehabilitate;
of him who transforms.

Fly, soul, fly
To him who with a puff
of air
gave life.

To him who with a wave
of a hand divided seas
from land.

To him who spoke
and the world was born.

To him who put the survival
will
in each spirit
then set that
will
in a body.

Fly, soul, fly.
To him who loves us.

To him who grieved so at man’s
selfish choice,
he threw himself into the world’s
mad crush to show the way out.
Fly, soul, fly.

Hello, God.
I read the need for you
in the news today;
there in the pain,
there in the trying.

Who can go this alone?
I can’t.
Change me;
walk beside me.
Be my guide.
Make a difference.
It’s not real life without you.

I breathe deep.
I can make
it through this stack
of papers.
If you’re here With me.

You wash the black
off my fingers.

You wash the black
off the world.

Fly, soul, fly.

Write

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Plumb the depths
dig into the gritty nitty
else  i l q1 r b H  and
all aaaa—zzzz—2222
fall hollow?

Reach no heights;
pale to  f a d e , the flesh
unknown.
So they say.

Dig it up, serve in red
bites, chunks drip,
for drool’s only run where
pain lives.  Apparently.

Risk.  Fly off the rock.
The greater the heaven
the greater the soar,
the greater the fall,
the greater the splat.
Splat.
Splat.

Ah, splat into wisdom’s eye shine
or splat into vapid’s barren desert?

Turn the letter-word-phrase to
a golden, light, even crust on all
sides.  Perfection?

Beauty’s in the eye of
the beholder, I’ve heard.
Still, word’s truths live
tho’ understanding varies.

Does this depth skim
some other’s surface?
Miss their depth?
Is this as
deep as I get?

Perhaps it takes a dig
beyond their deep
to get me.

kitchen visions…

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image source:Bing image

image source:Bing image

Knife flies, onions weep,
garlic peel    sticks
Mother cries with throat clogs.

Time flies while Fur Elise sweeps
the keys.
Who knew?
This was no season for angst.

Where is the time kept that perfected
thus?

Sisyphean over and over
around and around, up and down
in and out
marks dread’s thread pulled
over years and ages and days and
minutes to hold in a No. N.O.

Yet, here I am, wheeling the knife
shaping the pieces, carving the chunks
that eases with less than Herculean.

I’m quite impressed
Beethoven, Orff and Bizet serenade
with an flow that marks success.

Smile fills my plate.
Why did I not know it could be this easy?

Birdhouse – by Julienne Johnson

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image source:google images

image source:google images

You can’t pick a metaphor with a roller skate key
so I kept my secrets there
hidden under a hammock
where Butchie and I were trying hard to balance
younger then, peaches that still had fuzz — holding tight
the woven grey canvas swinging from the green metal frame
pushed to the farthest edge of our mowed square
far as we can go — you know the rules:
one half-acre of green limit
crab grass, sassy as ever
Kentucky Blue, and dandelions —
yellow crayolas rub ’em under my chin
see if I’m tellin’ the truth —
see — no yellow, told ya so!

swinging but trying not to
so our dinners wouldn’t spill
leaning toward the center of each other
to fill up that empty space we felt there;
I loved being close to Butchie
he was my picnic table
like he hid under
last time he ran away
almost got to Ohio

trembling together that day
still in dirty swimsuits — wet
kids play under sprinklers – sizzling hot heavy Michigan days
but now it had cooled down
little bodies wearing goose bumps
balancing plates on laps
burned green peas and hard hamburgers
a slice of white Silvercup bread on top of tears
trying not to fall into the empty wheelbarrow we watched
out in a field of catsup
that we were afraid to ask for
we kept our eyes on a robin dancing on the wooden handle
while hundreds of Black-eyed Susans
like me — looked for a four-leaf clover
but it was so hard to see through the blur
eat your God-damned dinner or the belt
no pants — again
Dad wore his weapon
had a way with keeping his word

I see the Birdhouse.
Butchie made it with his new jigsaw
a Christmas present
he was only six
so proud of that Birdhouse
he could hardly wait for Dad to come home
Dad left on Mondays and came back on Fridays
eight years of peace in the middle
Hammer! I see the hammer too
rusty with a worn oak handle
blue shingles — orange somewhere

Butchie loved to build things
and I loved Butchie
My Father smashed the whole thing
all on one Friday night
an ugly pumpkin!
only 15 minutes home
I wanted to hold Butchie so he could hold me
Lifesavers from the same package that stick together
but we had separate bedrooms
walls — grey between us — walls
and no crying
wasn’t allowed on the new yellow bedspread
or anywhere else in their house
a night stand stained with maple pushed against the bed skirt
it was hard to see through the plaid — hear them coming
so much dust under the bed

but back to the hammock…
Butchie and I weren’t very hungry for peas and cotton
even the lilacs blooming in the corner knew
we hated our Father
our mother was dying, trying – again
on a rainbow she longed to ride out
red yellow blue — all in one swift swallow
faster than you can crush a ripe wild strawberry
the red must have stopped her… same as before

“Who are you? Please help me. I want my Daddy.”

“It’s me Mommy. Don’t be afraid, I’ll take care of you.”
but where’s Butchie, the lilacs, the four-leaf clovers?

older now, fuzz free, face down, Rolex up on a Persian carpet
his own kids in Jordan Airs — stepping over him
a bridge between two chairs
smashed
cheers — to the Birdhouse.

Julienne Johnson
http://www.julienneART@me.com

Art heart…

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The heart lunges, it hungers, it leaps.  I’ve seen it try and pour itself out in saving others or giving to others in a beauty that is unrecognized by the fearful, the hurt, the hungry.  They lash out against the heart’s beauty.  They misunderstand.

I get the beauty, but of course, I compare.  Me to her.  Me to him.  Aren’t I silly for doing that?  What’s to compare?  Their uniqueness shrivels my plainness?  Or does my beauty shine a hue that differs from their rainbows?

image source:Bing images

image source:Bing images

Take the strutting peacock, for instance.  That’s just the male.  The female, the one he’s strutting for is plain and mousey by comparison.  Which begs the question, if you follow, does the male with his bright feathers, tips in bright, bold eyes, think he is beautiful?  Or does he strut because he is ugly until chosen?

Perhaps it’s far simpler.  His DNA is programmed for bright hues and strutting and her DNA is programmed for simple, plain, protective style that melds into the ground cover, hiding there to protect the young, making the nest look enticing to the fabulous, plumed, brilliant, stunning MALE.  And so they choose and so they mate and so the breed continues.

They did what they were born to do.  They follow instinct and fulfill their destiny.  I get tripped up in the search for my destiny versus some other person’s destiny – hers or his; my potential versus hers or his; the choices, the options are myriad.  Too many to comprehend and embrace.  Perhaps that is why I get nothing done and accomplish squat.  Which way to go?  Which dream to follow?  Which heart to embrace?

I ponder and try to reach beyond the sameness of this morning.  Nothing new there; it’s the common challenge as the everyday breathes on all sides.

I call to Mother and she comes to my desk, slowly, her balance steadied by her footed cane.  Sun shines its morning glow through the eastern window with a glisten on the gray streaks in her dark hair.

“I can’t stand here looking at pictures,” she leans on the cane, “I have to get some breakfast.”

“I know,” I rise from my folding chair and help her get seated.  “Just this one; you’ll love it,” I maneuver the laptop so that Mother can see.

My nephew’s wife posts pictures of their two girls, toddlers, on her facebook page.  In this picture, the littlest one grins, every inch of her body covered in happiness, her big blue eyes saucers of joy.  Her older sister looks shyly at the camera, her smile demure, her big blue eyes tentative.  They’re both dressed in ruffled, polka-dot cotton shirts and tot sized blue jeans.

“So beautiful.  I want to squeeze both of them,” Mother reaches up and adjusts the angle of her glasses for a better view.  “They need to come see us again.”

We look at several pictures until Mother pushes herself upright and with careful moves of her cane, returns to the kitchen.  There’s a slight lift to her movement.  She drank in the beauty of two new little lives, health’s glow on their skin, bright eyes, fluffy hair and pint-sized outfits.  She doesn’t feel any better than she did before; it’s the beauty that has lifted her.  She’ll get her breakfast a little easier now.

So shall I compare my beauty to theirs?  To some artist?  Shall I stifle the creativity that I didn’t know was there because it looks different from all others?  I find myself picking at our differences.  I see the lack in my creative well.  I feel drab and useless.  I am ineffectual.  I am not an artist.

It’s no good stopping at that sore spot.  The lack is too painful.  I push on.  I seek the truth.  I dig until I find it.  Or it finds me.  God programmed their DNA.  God programmed my DNA.  I’m not the artist she is or he is.  I am my own artist.  I will take my cue from Mother.  Absorb the beauty, let it escape the synapses of my gray matter to run down my arms and spill out through my fingers.  I will create.

The do…

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image source:picsbox

image source:picsbox

I wonder if we choose
cadillac shine with fingers to the keys and
synapsis firing
or do the pistons lift and fall to the unseen?

Fingers filled and colored bright        glued           stationary
where they   float   push    pull
GRASP             reach   tug      despair
d

r

o

w

n.

How they soar to the music and bleed into the camera,
emerge, wholly frac  tured.

I try to wrap my head around that beauty, that strange
drama of pain, fulfillment, Joy.  Driven determination.

They leech into my sleep.
Dreams skate across the wrinkled blanket and
fall into the abyss of sweet and fearful.

“Like a sparrow in his flitting, like a swallow in its flying,
a curse that is causeless does not alight.”

Proverbial sight pierces dark.  Not proverbial until birthed,
right?  I mean, the proverb started somewhere, get it?

Begin the beguine, trip the light fantastic
right down to the drive, the sit, the start, the do, the do, the do.

Was that really so hard?  The barrier releases and the flood
bursts
OR trickles, trickles, trickles,
rains, splatters, downpours, floods;

OUT they spit, the letters, the a, the c, the qu, the z
after one, two, three   Squat.

So, if outside, implore;
if inside, explore
else denying dry DIE crackle and Never have life.