Hopeful Mama Still Loves Me

Scoot and me are late to school. I don’t like being late because everyone stares and Miss Primrose expects a ‘reasonable excuse for tardiness.’

Scooter pulls out his pocketknife and strolls to the front, his happy eyes aiming at the wood he’s about to shave into invisible.

“Emma June?” Miss Primrose says.

“I’m sorry, Miss Primrose,” I say, glancing at Frank who’s giving me a half smile. “Scooter had himself a bit of an adventure.”

The class giggles and I want to punch them all in the face. What’s wrong with an adventure? At least the ones that don’t make someone carry a grudge. Daddy said Mama still loves me. There’s hope in that.

I try so hard to remember what happened toward the end of the carnival, but everything is jumbled up like bad scrambled eggs. Carla was in better shape than me, but she fell asleep on the ride home when Mama and Beauty had the fight. I remember fading in and out while they argued. I remember upchucking more than once. There’s nobody to tell me what happened except Mama.

So many questions I wanted to ask Daddy that morning when  I woke up to find Mama gone. The only answers were Daddy’s tears. “We’ll work this out. Don’t worry. We’ll work this out,” he had said. And then his words faded as he shuffled away to his bedroom and closed the door.

I don’t know how to help him work things out any more than I know how to make Mama come home. I might as well try picking up shadows.

 

Excerpt from The Moonshine Thicket (1928)

Hopeful

A Falling-Out

After a falling-out with a friend I had visited in NYC, I originally wrote this as a song. But, of course, now I don’t remember the tune!

 

85th and Riverside

City of lights, its slice of the world

where friendships evolve and feeling unfurl

and you sit on the steps of a Brownstone reflecting

On words that were thrown without out you expecting

Your tone was so angry, your words were so cross

I felt myself drifting away

My heart, it was sinking, but the pain it would fade

I just hated to leave you that way.

(Chorus) Pick up the pieces you find, build something solid inside

When hearts collide

Time heals all wounds and friendships recover

the city of lights will go on

And though times get hard, there are others so easy

Just a small fall from grace from beyond

And times as it passes, still gets us back

the hearts are still beating inside

And you know where to find me (you know I won’t hide)

In that nest with my mouth open wide.

First and Last Impressions

 

Rummaging through my hoarding stacks of old journals and writings, I found another poem so you can Pillage through my words.

Side View Mirror

In a side view mirror with a dark side view

I’m driving down the highway and I’m thinking of you

I see a reflection

of a past I once knew

in a side view mirror with a dark side view.

And the clean rain falls

as it washes this place

while the moisture softens this hard luck face

But the scenery flies by

leaving nothing but a trace

As the clean rain falls on a tear-stained face.

Yellow stripes and concrete,

tumble weeds and dust

Gulf stream winds

blow back the bangs of lust

Passing cars of those

you think you’ll never meet

Leave a lasting first impression on the cracked leather seat.

 

Missing my chocolate boy

It was two years ago today and I still miss my sweet chocolate boy. I named him Luther Martin,  after Martin Luther King Jr. A hard name to live up to. But, in my mind, he did.

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Even as a puppy, he tried to retrieve my eight-year-old daughter out of the pool.

He loved cantaloupe. He knew he was loved.

And when the new “kids” came around, he accepted them, too.  img_3504

We took him to our homestead in the Texas Hill Country where you can look far into the distance. I didn’t know it would be his last time. But Luther knew.

Because he stared at the sunset, then into the darkness.

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Two years ago yesterday, he celebrated his last Christmas with the family. He ate a full plate of “Christmas”.

Two years ago today, as Luther lay on a pallet at the vet’s office, I fed him two McDonald’s cheeseburgers so he could rise up and meet his sunset.

And so, he did.

 

 

My gift to you

I painted this on the first day of the Iraqi war and named it “Peace Bubbles.” (I sold this painting and believe it is hanging on a wall in a yoga studio in NYC)

Whatever traditions you celebrate this season, I hope your life is filled with peace, acceptance, grace, hope, kindness, joy and LOVE.

All the best to you, my blogging buds! – Carolyn

 

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When Scooter’s enthusiasm waned

Emma June has known Scooter her whole eleven years. She remembers when he was scared of the dark. Now, the day is closing and Scooter is missing.
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Scoot had been excited about the campout all day, so I didn’t tell him I was spooked. I looked up through the gaps in the trees and watched the clouds as they moved across the half moon like blankets trying to cover a small bed. Then it got darker. The owl hooted and we both saw its eyes, yellow and mean. Scooter said it first. “Campout over.” Then he got up and walked inside with the sleeping bag over his head.

I’m not afraid of the dark anymore. I’m not afraid of untold secrets, either.

“I’m afraid for Scooter,” I tell Frank.

“Me too.

Excerpt from The Moonshine Thicket

 Enthusiasm

The truth about my blogging “friends”

I blogged many years back and stopped. Maybe I didn’t understand it or maybe I just didn’t care. But I came back into “your” fold this past August because  I was on a mission. I had a goal and I haven’t done such a good job achieving it.

But, as I like to say, “there goes that universes again” — because blogging has taught me things I didn’t expect.

I have to tell you. A few people in my life, including an attorney friend of mine, worries that “exposing” myself to the cyber world could be unsafe. That “many of those bloggers are not true to who they really are.”

If that’s the case with any of you, back up, Jack, and hit the unfollow button.

(But I think I “know” you.)

Unless I’m traveling, my world is a bit of a bubble. You know, routines and such. Not that I’m complaining. For the most part, I like my sac of familiar air.

But now I have cyber friends like you, who come from all over the world, who tell me through words or photographs about their life, and interests. Many of you share the same thoughts and ideals as me. And the ones who differ, teach me.

You are writers, strugglers, rebels, photographers, dancers, chefs, visionaries, travelers, poets, doctors, animal lovers, readers, humorists. You are mothers, fathers, new adults, aging adults, “in-between” adults.

And, here is the common thread: You are all thinkers who ponder and share the world as you know it.

So what’s not to like?

It’s not you. It’s me. I’m not so good at promoting my novels to make a “difference” in sales while sitting at this particular table.

But I like this wooden table. There is plenty of room for everyone.

And it’s round. 

 

 

(And yes, it’s an electronic cigarette)