As you walk down your life’s path, thinking about what is important and what is not, be conscious of where you meander, for if you lose track of your whereabouts you may find yourself walking into the hands of disaster, unexpectedly prodding on thorns and other hurtful entities . Keep your morals and values intact, remembering that it is the small things that make the chaos seem miniscule.
relationships
sobering
she’s aged. her body doesn’t work like it used to. it doesn’t flow freely, moving gracefully across the landing. rather, her steps are small, calculated, and painful. yet, she is determined to maintain her independence. holding on to this and that as she makes her way from one room to the next. washing stray dishes. pouring coffee into a small cup. and oh so carefully balancing herself, and her drink, as she makes her way to her favorite chair. where she places headphones haphazardly on her crown, messing up her grandma gray hair, in order to hear the voices on the tv.
when she lies in bed. her mind meanders to the past. remembering things she thought she had forgotten. faces flash before her eyes, and she wonders where they are. what they’ve been doing. she reflects. thinks of herself, as a young girl. a girl who would run down the hills of los angeles. and back up again. she remembers the young woman she used to be. a beauty, admired. she gently cries. overwhelmed with the memories of her past. memories that flood her aging mind.
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home
i walk in with a smile, a carefree hello, and and ask how his day was. he asks me the same. then he offers me a warm bowl of freshly made soup, knowing it’d soothe me. i tell him i’d just like a cup of tea first, to just relax. so he offers me the homemade cookies he’d made. i take three. he smiles, and kisses my forehead as i lean into him.
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the boy and the donkey
A donkey wandered around the backyard, minding its own business, when, suddenly, a young boy plopped a colorful wool blanket onto the unsuspecting animal’s back. That little kid jumped aboard, straddling the animal, just like he’d seen the older boys do. A friend grabbed the donkey’s rein and nudged the calm creature around the fenced in yard. Six or seven boys took turns climbing up onto the donkey’s swayed back and enjoy the slow pace of the animal.
Now, these boys were young, in first grade most likely. Boys being boys. Finding something to do to pass the time. The first boy to ride the donkey was in charge of this small-time circus, well, because, it was his grandma who gave them permission to entertain the donkey. Now, this was exciting considering these young lads had never before been allowed to enjoy such a treat. The boys laughed and laughed. They were enjoying themselves when out of nowhere – it seemed – a voice asked, “Can I ride?” It was another friend, the one who always seemed to get himself in some kind of trouble.
“Before you can ride the donkey you need to pull the donkey around the yard first,” the ring master told his friend. The newly arrived boy grabbed the rein, but none of the other kids climbed onto the donkey’s back, which was actually kind of nice because it made it easier for the trouble-maker to guide the animal around. The lone boy circled the yard but then decided to be a bit daring, so he oh-so-slowly maneuvered the donkey into the space below the house. Enough space to get through, but confined enough that he needed to stoop to walk from one end to the other. Except, well, the problem was, the boy didn’t stoop enough, or properly, or something, because all that the other boys could hear was “Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!” every time the boy smacked his forehead against the wooden pillars protruding down from below the house. The boy exited the other side holding his hand flat against his flaming red forehead. “That hurt,” is all he said. The other boys laughed, not surprised by the trouble-maker’s shenanigans, while the ring-leader jumped onto the donkey for another ride.
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rudy and the rocks
In first or second grade Rudy found himself in a pickle. He did something wrong, something the teacher didn’t approve of. She handed him a sealed note addressed ‘To the Parents of…’ and told him to take it home, that he needed to have one or both his parents read and sign it. And, well, in his town, a sealed letter from the teacher always meant You are in trouble mister! news.
Rudy panicked, was scared of the spanking that was sure to happen once his mom read what he had done. He knew that his dad was at work so it would be his mom that would handle the situation. Her way.
A classmate, a wee boy about the same small height as Rudy, noticed the fear building up in his eyes, so he recommended that Rudy defuse the situation with just three rocks.
“Three rocks?” Rudy questioned.
“Only three,” the friend responded. “And you must find those three rocks right here, on the school grounds, right now. You cannot pick them up on your way home.”
Rudy ran off to collect the average sized rocks, not much bigger than large pebbles.
“Got ’em,” he claimed, holding out his hand, displaying the carefully-selected-similar-looking gray rocks.
“Good. Now what you do is… when you are walking home toss one rock behind you, and don’t look back. Never look back,” his peer stated.
“So, I just throw the rocks over my shoulder?”
“Yes, but you must throw them one at a time, not all at once. And, you must throw them with an equal distance between each toss.”
“Okay,” Rudy felt slightly confused, and must have shown it on his face.
“Once you leave this spot and are a short distance away throw the first rock behind you, wait until you have walked a little then throw the second rock, and then the third rock gets tossed at an equal distance compared to the first two. Understand?”
Rudy shook his head up and down. “And you are sure I will not get a spanking when I get home?”
“Yep,” the boy confidently stated.
Rudy made it home, successfully tossing the rocks at an equal distance, and never once did he look behind him to see where they landed. He nervously handed his mom the letter, whereby she simply smiled, and let him pass without a word.
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rudy and the belt
Something happened at dinner, some kind of confrontation. Maybe it was something he did, maybe it was his brother, or maybe his mom was in a bad mood because of something that happened to her during the day. But, it didn’t matter the reason because all Rudy knew was he was in big trouble.
He left the table, said he was going to go to the room downstairs, had to get out of there, away from the negativity. His mom didn’t let it go that easy. She grabbed a belt and followed him down the stairs, down to where the guests stayed and where she did the laundry.
His mom wrapped the belt tightly around her wrist, around her hand, leaving just enough leather to whip him. Rudy surprised her by grabbing the belt and yanking it away from her, saying he wasn’t going to take spankings anymore. That he was beyond too old for such discipline. That didn’t stop his angry mother. She grabbed a piece of wood, determined to make a point. But, that too, he pried from her hands. And then he walked away, walked back upstairs, up into his own room, and locked the door. And out of anger, he smashed some glass, breaking apart the bottom half of an otherwise functional slated glass window.
He could hear his mom on the phone, the phone right next to his bedroom, calling his dad, telling him how awful Rudy was behaving, how out of control he was. Rudy’s dad listened to his wife, told her he’d be right home, that he just needed to say goodnight to the client he was having dinner with.
He heard his dad approach, and opened his bedroom door when asked to do so. Rudy’s dad asked him what was going on, what happened. Rudy began by apologizing for breaking the window, but then he told his dad he didn’t do anything wrong, he didn’t know what his mom was so mad about, and that in no way, no how was he going to let his mom spank him with a belt. “I am 15 years old,” Rudy told his dad. “Enough is enough.” His dad wasn’t angry. Didn’t try to dispute Rudy. He simply listened, then nodded. Then his dad walked out of the room, closing the door quietly behind him.
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cat moves
Skyler.
On the porch. With me. In the early morning. Eating. Off a porcelain tea saucer. I pet her. Her tail responds. Stands straight up. Her back arches. Eyes close. Chin juts out. Quietly. I open the front door. She glides inside. Runs down the hall. Looking for solace. Yet. Suddenly. Hesitantly. She stops. Mid-step. Hears a noise. Feels frightened. Until she hears my voice. My trusting voice. She relaxes. When she hears my cooing. That’s when she knows she’s truly safe.
Skyler.
Looks at me. Stares at me. Trusts me. Connects with me. She wraps her body around my ankles. While a soft meow escapes her. She wants to stay. To cuddle. With me. Inside the house. But more than that, she wants to leave. Go back outside. Out into her world. I open the sliding door. Walk out. Into the backyard. After Skyler. That’s when I notice. She’s thinner. Still furry. But her body is smaller. She turns toward me. Looks. It seems. Deep into my soul. I sit. On the cold cement step. I hold her. Rub her face. Her eyes. Her ears. Her chin. I comfort her until she no longer wants comforting.
Skyler.
She jumps down. Out of my arms. Lies next to my feet. Meows. Lovingly. Then she’s off. Walks away. Swishing her tail. Greeting the morning’s sunrise.
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a boy and the lies he tells
Most times kids lie to avoid trouble. Not him. He lies to avoid the truth.
During a classroom math time discussion his teacher asked the students a graphing question. “Who has been to Disneyland?” she wondered, big fat marker in hand, ready to chart their answers.
Youthful hands shot up into the air, wiggling with excitement.
Not his. His hands were jammed firmly under his little boy thighs.
“Never?” Ms. She’s Really Nice inquired.
He shook his head back and forth. ” But, I have been to Las Vegas,” he shared.
Later, in the late afternoon, while sitting in a circle with the other boys and girls in karate class, he made an announcement.
“I did not get any presents for Christmas.”
That got their attention.
“I did not give any presents to anyone either. Anyway, I don’t even celebrate Christmas,” he said.
No. Big. Deal.
When he was in the car with his mom, driving home from an hour of kicks and jabs, he rehashed his day.
“Why would you tell the teacher you’ve never been to Disneyland? And Vegas? Why did you say you went to Las Vegas?”
She continued questioning him before he could get a word-in-edgewise.
“You said you didn’t get presents, didn’t give them, and don’t even celebrate Christmas? Why would you make up all those things?” she wondered.
“I just don’t want people to know everything about me,” he answered.
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grandma’s visit
Rudy and I were sitting together on the couch this morning, me enjoying a cup of coffee, him sweating from the overbearing heat filtering through the windows, when he somberly stated, “My grandma Victoria came to me in a dream last night.” I turned my body toward him, encouraging Rudy to continue, to tell me about his favorite Abuelita, who, sadly, passed away when he was 15 years old.
“She was wearing a light beige skirt. It went to about here,” he made a slicing motion across the middle of his calf with the side of his right hand. “And she was wearing a tan colored long sleeved blouse, with fancy ruffles across the front. Which is odd, weird, I don’t know, just not her style. She always wore dresses. You know, the spring kind, with flowers? Bright colors?”
In the dream, Rudy had been sitting on the screened-in front porch of the house where he was living as a teen. His back was to the front door when it suddenly opened, revealing Victoria. He turned to see his grandma, and smiled.
“The top was tucked into the skirt,” he continued, “and she asked me, ‘How do I look?’ I said, ‘You look beautiful, Grandma!’ and then I cried.”
While Rudy was relaying the dream, and the intense love he has always felt for his long gone maternal grandmother, tears flooded his red rimmed eyes, just as it must have happened in his dream.
“As she held my face in her hands Grandma said, ‘It’s time for me to go. I need to go home.’ But this is your house, I told her, you live here too, with us. ‘I know’, she said, quietly, ‘but I need to go home. I have postponed it twice now, Hijo, but I need to go.’ I told her I understood, but I didn’t really. And then I woke up.”
I looked at Rudy, waiting for more.
“I don’t know what she meant about postponing going home twice. I can’t make sense of it. Or why she was wearing beige. I think it might be because we were just talking about colors the other day, and remember when Liz mentioned something about the beige clothing a character was wearing? About how psychologically colors represent some kind of emotion? So maybe that’s where the outfit comes from. A symbol that she’s been an essential and dependable force in my life? But it’s weird to see her like that because, like I said, she always wore dresses. Very colorful ones. And she was never without an apron at home. I don’t have any idea what the dream meant, and probably never will. My grandma died so long ago, but I do like that she visited me.”
Rudy looked at me. I smiled.
“Anyway, I felt happy seeing her, and my grandma seemed happy and content. When she held my face the way she used to, in a way that I knew how much she loved me, I felt her here, with me.”
His eyes brimmed with tears as he squeezed my hand. I squeezed back.
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why don’t you ask him
She was walking fast down a paved road, in the middle of a tree infested neighborhood. Her stride was determined. She was not going to take it anymore. Not at all. She was going to get to the bottom of their problem.
She left their cozy home, left her half-full cup of coffee tilting on the armrest of their old faded couch, and slammed out the front door, looking for an answer.
She knew he was with her best friend and she was going to confront them. Now! She knew what they were doing. Listened to him tell his lies as she sat idle in their otherwise normal life.
Fleetwood Mac was blaring in her ears. ‘Why don’t you ask him if he’s gonna stay’ the words screamed as she stomped her feet hard as she walked along the quiet road. She used every last bit of strength to work herself into a frenzy. The more angry she felt the less worrisome she would be about her behavior.
They’d been married for years. And years. They’ve had their ups. And their downs. But nothing like this before. Never.
She pounded her fist on the peeling barn-red front door. Cautiously, ever so slightly, it opened. She used her foot to kick the door in, revealing her husband in the background. ‘Just tell me that you want me!’ she heard herself scream.
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