86 now, it’s the sweet that she is that throws me; we know so little, take so much umbrage with the winding down unlike the winding up of infants into toddlers, and then there is the inevitable oh just kill me when I get like that comment, well no, in fact–even in idle conversation I find it these days more than a bit provocative...and chickenshit, first off kill your own damn when you think the time is right and secondly just what the hell did all of y’all think would happen when we decided to live so damn long?

She came, number 3 wife with her number 1 husband to the party, looking unrecognizable, sad I couldn’t help but think and lost. I mean she didn’t complain about him once, instead she’s on about her mother with no humor to buffer it. And he may be full of shit but fact is he knows what he wants, and what he likes, and barring that a puppy will do.

Fact is, I’m grouchy today which is neither here nor there. That said, I wonder if I was rather abrupt and unduly frivolous with her yesterday.

She wore lovely red shoes.

they were covered, he was at my house, I asked, he giggled chin neutral, looked to the older man who impercebtibly but just the same gave the side slide nod, and the saw it coming laugh and the kid off the beat but with resolve and chin still neutral answered the carpets already cleaned money exchanging hands on the stoop thanks a lot said white power eyes straight ahead holding steady

we talked a lot after they’d left about whoah, paul saying well they can’t come back and my being a yid withstanding needing some steps in between

to speak up

someone broke into the substation that supplies our town with power and vandalized it so the town, geared up for an influx of tourists and their dollars was without power until after most visitors had already sayonara’d with our without their money–I don’t know if it’s a good or a bad thing it was not a big city event otherwise for sure we would be on some sort of terrorist alert...and homeland security no doubt would be crawling up someone’s butt...as it was it was just another day in g’ville with or without power as the case was

don’t go to town she said, the stoplight–that we’d complained so bitterly about when it was put in–isn’t working and traffic is backed up for miles...fact is, if we go to town at all during holiday weekends we usually walk or bike and it’s mostly to see the circus so to speak but it is the many during the summer that support our year round coffeeshops pizzarias bookstores restaurants clothes stores 5&10 a fullblown grocery complete with starbucks...

but we didn’t go to town it was too damn hot and the stoplight that we’d complained about bitterly wasn’t working

still haven’t figured out how to answer the how is she question, not quite able to bring myself to use dementing as a context–it’s not as if it is the lay of the land and of course it is–and it’s not that I don’t know it or see it, and it’s not of course as if that’s not why she’s at the villa it’s just for reasons that I’m not clear on hard to say...but there it is, she’s dementing and she’s fine...perhaps in her case she’s unmented or half-mented or
and there it is, hard to say

7/7/07
he’s 55 today some fancy number works there–happybirthday paul!
we’ve been&will continue to celebrate afterall it’s a season, notjust a day, and asis his wont, he’s working extra days infact not to buy but asit turnsout the better to pay for a new banjo we’re having made that started out as a (throw-away) traveler since I’m afraid to take my main squeeze out of the house andbutofcourse I can’t play no stinkin’shitbanjo–so, we’re having one made, special, the caveat ofcourse is I will take it with me and it’s good, he said, you didn’t take up the damned piano

leylines

Not, but could be lovers, their sexual tension free & clear is left hanging in the air for others to metabolize or otherwise make sense of. Like dancers they move together. In unison even when apart. He had no other words so he said she’s my best friend but they have their own language and still live in the castlefort they built as kids no parents no others allowed.

Forever on watch, he’s the keeper of her tinkerbell. Lighter than air she drifts on the wind. Ambassador, and –not yet– queen of their keep, she bears the responsibility of hope.

They’re in lovebut, one at a time they take turns. Each has their moment, their season in the lovebut pulpit. I love you but...I’m not ready, I need to do this that or the other first as if it works that way. Which is not to say it isn’t working for them, only to say it’s not love but lovebut and therein is the crux of the matter. He said something like he wanted her to make the decision without his having anything to do with it. If she can then for sure it truly ain’t love but lovebut.

I don’t know what made me think of it, but it brought me to–as much as our parents loved us we were not the meaning of their lives–we took our rightful place but not above all else. It was this paradigm I believe that allowed me to stay the course of no children; I’d been thinking about time and the not enough of it for most, even moreso the case these days than money, and how in the wake of that so many are losing themselves ah there it is,

boundaries notwithstanding I was not my mother’s purpose,

it was quiet I needed away from it all which is not exactly right, it’s that ensconced one loses perspective thinking that’s all there is and then it takes on a weight and a density and a velocity of greater than and ones humor diminishes; my humor diminished my humors diminished
it was quiet I needed away from it all, I rode to the crown of may’s canyon, looked this way and that over the ridge heard the wind in the aspens and the creaks of my joints
it was quiet that I needed away from it all
it was

the question is, if this is all there is, is it enough, if this is the there,after is it there enough, which is a trick because this is all there is and this is the there,after and it still stands in as lovebut, no one to blame

not mine to invest in particular outcome but he asked, again
so I am where I was before–it’s the tricks that bedevil me, no one with a particular monopoly here

the not altogether true of it all that bothers me–he who for the all of it more than anything is a truth seeker

it is the guise of taking care of oneself by managing me that rankles, the making of your shit mine, the reconstruction of your problems as somehow mine that is the burr in my sock, and the won’t fly of the not flying situation I am finding myself in with her
she said the other day when we were out and about could you say ‘business’ partner because it confuses people–blew me as far away as white power–but fact is unless it rolls off my tongue the answer is, not if I don’t and speak for your own damn self

Was listening to a trio concerto that she’d played and I was undermined or mined as the case was, caught by surprise again in the spot that is the geography of intrinsic self through the splash of tears on the other side of the moat for which I still have no damned words

a body’s impulse or first wisdom

a full flush of what might be otherwise called pleasure–or for that matter, pain–but full flush nevertheless

awesome how much of her life I missed as opposed to how much of mine she did not and how much I miss her.

after some to and fro but mostly after just speaking up I feel–I am–less annoyed, and comforted for knowing the whereofs if not the whereafters or the therefores whatever the hell that means–but my sense that it is the same in each of us that sets the other off, I think, intrinsically is correct but I of course think I own my shit better than she does in the speaking for myself department and since she it seems squirrels things away for later I will henceforth ask from which particular left field a sally came when it comes a’sallying forth

and for all of it the volume went to the printer and a right write smart anthology it will be...could be I’m getting–got–a taste of my own medicine having responded to particular words that sound this way or that rather than the intent which is by style a bit like scattershot and prissy at times but well intentioned her predilection to her own way as a single person her livelong life notwithstanding...but it’s the dare yous to that add to my downfall, the implied pursed lip disapproval that can be denied but could be successful that rings my bell...

Predictably of course she can’t leave her mother to her own devices. And I don’t suppose that is in fact what I meant. What I mean is she can if she chooses rewrite revamp reconfigure her own suffering. What I mean is, in the end this will, each of us, be about our comportment and integrity not theirs. They are off the hook. I mean they are who they are and it is not their behavior at this late date we are aiming to change. Rather it is about the shapes of loving, and not so much mothering as daughtering.

it is about making peace and forgiving in a stop blaming sense, it is about another crossroads and making change before it is too late, it is of course about laying to rest the demons we have nourished given shape to and given safe haven to rather than ourselves

it is about taking note yet again dear person or exactly where you are on the horizon

it is not any longer about anything other than who we have become and there,after

funny I don’t think she would see herself as a complainer but she surely does and does and does

got two banjo lessons upcoming one with entropy the other with anti-entropy, perfect complements, each allowing me not to take the other too seriously; allowing me to take it as seriously as I choose each affording me a bundle of pleasure

so I’m waiting for anti-entropy to send me a tape of the 2 part invention we’re/I’m learning and am somewhat offput by the delay while he’s awaiting perfection and david asked me for a tape and lo I find myself wondering what I can play perfectly, how perfectly ridiculous!

I’m embarrassed by what I missed worrying about dvora’s mistakes

so I nearly got pointed and clicked my own damn self, almost walked right into taking it on as an underdog so to speak project... her landlord screamed at her becuase...and bla bla....and so she’s gotten rid of two dogs...pointing her nose at a neighbor who may or may not have instigated it, which with one moment’s thought away from the spell of it all is totally ridiculous...which is simply to say, it’s easy to make it someone else’s fault that you can’t manage your dogs the caveat is, it is not to say she’s lying

That’s about as good as I’ve heard it played in a while he said. High praise and full sentences; a regular bonanza is what it was.

Meanwhile–She thought balancing the checkbook would be welcome relief from the despair which gripped her now. Money was no problem. But she was not prepared for the what-all it kept track of, for the snapshot of any given day, for the full record of a whole life it was. Of a whole life that was.

If only it was as simple as subtracting $254.63 from the plenty she had. Each check was a story.

I would have to say most religious people give religious people a bad name, or most religious people on a mission give religious people a bad name and me gas...beyond that it’s a fool’s game one of those everyone thinks he knows exactly what is being talked about when one talks about religion or religious...all those big words like faith and god and right and heaven and hell and amen

but it’s all the smoke and mirrors of languaging and affiliating; most atheists on a mission give atheists a bad name too

..., whose the fairest of them all

there is substantive difference in age that happens some time menopausal for lack of a different way of nailing it down, in a literal and figurative way ones vision changes among other things

how and what one cares for changes

and one has the years of experience–now the amber of wisdom–as part of her breastplate

and for the first time in our lives we are private unto ourselves citizens no longer inherently involved in the good of the whole

none of this news but it informs our interactions with you, and unaware, you are at a disadvantage, you are lost

It’s becoming more mine this thing that is the banjo on my knee and the music of it and the space of it, like standing on a sidewalk and holding ones shape not only in your own hometown but in some far flung place like bangkok or dehli where it’s all up for grabs.

The lesson of course took over the entire span of his stay rather than simply the 2 allotted hours the morning after. An immersion–a substrate, there it is. There it was of course too–after all she was a musician–but now it’s mine. I am the catalyst.

Are you a flirt, she asked.
I walked across the street, having just gotten out of the car, lingering just in case their conversation was one I would intrude in. It was.
They looked at me, waiting.
Well, are you, the other one asked, again. She flirted less now that her husband was dead.
I was, but I flirted with women too I finally came up with.
All this classified information, TheMan in the driveway in tennis-like couture fiddlefarting at some task said with mirth, too late.
It’s never too late, dear, was the rejoinder.

75+70+65-60=270/4=67.5. I guess it isn’t.

there were flowers when I got home a bounty of red roses just so in a vase and a card–thank you for all the love and sweet things you do for all of us–mediated, and so perfectly softened me roaring through the door having just come from the assessor’s office to readjust a totally ridiculous assessment because they didn’t believe ThePress had no assets which we don’t–but they had to do it their way–feeling so, in a word vexed, and bam there were flowers on the table a bounty of red roses just so in a vase and a card

We were sitting across the table talking–I have no idea how many others were there–I hadn’t seen him, well not since I’d separated from my husband and of course before that our lives had already diverged; he married, had kids–and now out of no damn where we were not only in the same state but at some event sitting across a table talking and as if it were just another word in a sentence without todo the words were replaced by a kiss, and another as if it were just another breath, and there were no good reasons not to.

out of practice having a thousand things to do and not enough time, or waxing and waning interests, or life intervening the way it does with a thousand other things to do and not enough time, or waxing and waning interests and life intervening I must say I’m out of practice and I don’t like the aggravation, the steam that builds up behind it, the pebble in the shoe sense of it–not that I can’t but as my once husband once said, the hassle ain’t worth the bummer and since it’s all
self-chosen I’m not sure why I would persist

so it’s true she rankles those she loves and that love her the most rubbing as she does as they do against those indelible fundamentals, standards, and of course who knows best or even at all, and each her own sense of timing; that one being the lever for belonging, position, and say

belonging position and say important to a sense of self

ah, therein is the princess advantage–wieldy as long as one remembers the attendant responsibility to ones adoring public and that being a princess is not the same as or simple as having an overvalued sense of self

it’s a small and big thing this going to see friends in the kith (from couth, known) sense and that is just why I’m going to see her because I am known to her and she to me, a checking in of sorts, a verification and just why for as long as she has she’s kept her distance, she not up to the snuff of being known, fair enough–we all take times out from being so captured as to be known, otherwise known as change
or as Maggie might have said, allowing for the possibility of seeing for oneself first

it is about the truth telling, it is all about the truth telling–she punched my ticket just right calling the way I am dismissive when I am done, when I am no longer interested, ohgod how so like my mother that drifting is if I’m not engaged and to engage me is to be engaged
the judgement is not about the generic you, but to better make decisions for me–though I am apt to be done with you if you do not meet me half way

she is not truth telling, but racketeering

the metaphors are not mixing well, amen