It's Impossible

Mornings are the only part of my day that follow a routine.

Boot up the computer. Start the coffee. Warm up the printer. Pull the sign ins from the day before. Check the email. Copy the receipts and scan to the office. All while fielding the typical early morning banter. Morning Stella. How You Doin, Sunshine? Oops spilled the coffee. Where’s the paper towels?

Enter yesterday’s time into the cards. File. File. File.

Safety meeting.

It’s an interactive soundtrack that repeats itself every morning. Like the dialogue from “It’s a Wonderful Life” I have it memorized right down to the pauses. On occasion, Civil Soup will whistle a few out of tune bars from some country song but that’s about as exciting as it gets.

This morning, as I was making the coffee, however, a different soundtrack wafted in from that end of the trailer.

Strangers in the night. Two lonely people, they were strangers in the night.

I frowned. Sinatra? Really? The voices in my head don’t usually do Old Blue Eyes.

Tendrils of Sinatra curled beneath the closed door of Mechanical Soup’s office, wafting toward me in buttery streams. Just then, the door opened and Zorro emerged, all six foot five of him, moustache and all, singing in a strong rich baritone.

 Up to the moment we said our first hello, little did we know, love was just a glance away, a warm embracing dance away…

He was deep in a set of drawings, his brow furrowed in concentration, but his steel toed boots weren’t feeling the isometrics. Instead they heel-toed their way along the vinyl in perfect time to the beat. Never looking up, he shifted seamlessly from one song to the next, like an old vinyl 72.

Heaven, I’m in heaven. And the cares that hung around me through the week seem to vanish like a gamblers winning streak when we’re dancing cheek to cheek.

Zorro. Sinatra.

Sinatra. Zorro.

I poured myself a cup and returned to my desk but my brain refused to reboot. I just sat there, feeling the universe shift beneath me. Hardhats and safety glasses don’t sing Sinatra. They just don’t.

Call me irresponsible. Call me unreliable. Throw in undependable too. Do my foolish alibis bore you? Well I’m not so clever, I just adore you.

Call me unpredictable. Tell me I’m impractical. Rainbows I’m inclined to pursue. Call me irresponsible. Yes I’m unreliable. But it’s undeniably true. I’m irresponsibly mad for you.

Seriously. The power of music is astounding. I was transported out of the dingy trailer to another place, where the world turned to black and white women wore crimson lipstick with clip on earrings and men tipped fedoras and actually knew how to dance. It was all I could do to keep from kicking off my shoes and twirling across the floor.

And for the rest of the day, I couldn’t look at Zorro without wondering ...
Who are you? And with a voice like that, why aren't you on  Broadway? 

Simple Mans Simple Prayer

I love this canyon country

Love the sacred in the land

Watching a new calf learn to stand

The acrid smell of burning brands

Soft feel of leather in my hands

And I am nothing - just a man

But Lord, I love this land

I love standing on a rimrock

With an updraft in my face

As I thank God for this time

And I thank Him for this place

And I think that there is nothing

Like an eagle on the wing

The promise of early spring

The best horse in the string

 I know I’m just a simple man

But Lord, I love this land

I love sitting on the front porch

When the thunder rolls to town

Lightning flashing all around

And the rain comes pouring down

Broken canyons, broken hills -

Broken people.. God, and still

I know I’m nothing - just a man

But Lord, I love this land

I love to see Old Glory

Snapping proudly on the breeze

And that lady in the harbor

That calls across the seas

Saying “Come, share in our bounty

In our fields of fruit and grain

In the grassy covered plains

And the crimson colored stain

that flowed so every man could be free

even me

and I’m humbled.. I’m just a man

But God, I love this land

Sugarbutt

There was a day when women in the workplace expected to be called ‘Sugar’ or ‘Hon’ or ‘Sweetie’ by their male coworkers. Maybe it was a sexually demeaning game. Maybe it was a colloquialism. Either way, it was the norm.

Nowadays, not so much.

Not that I long to return to the ‘Good Old Boys’ way of doing business… I don’t …. But it has gotten to the point where the threat of sexual harassment in the workplace has grown horns and a tail and hovers menacingly over the desk of every woman. I have watched men nearly kill themselves trying to recover from an innocent slip of the tongue.    

Men from the south seem to be particularly vulnerable. And you know what? I’m just going to say it. I don’t care. I don’t care if they call me Sweetie. I don’t care if they call me Sugar. I don’t mind if they open the door for me when my hands are full, or step aside to allow me to enter the room first. That’s not sexual harassment. That’s POLITE.

Sexual harassment is when a male superior calls you into his office and shuts the door behind him and gropes your body while you try to get a desk between the two of you.

Still… there’s a fine line to be drawn.

 I work with an older gentleman from Texas who is prone to verbal gaffes when it comes to me. He’s called me everything you can imagine and apologized more times than I can count. Yesterday, we were alone in the office. I was filing and had my backside to him when suddenly I heard, “Hey, Sugarbutt, what’re you doin?”

I slammed the filing drawer closed and whirled to face him. “WHAT did you just call me?”

He looked up, face frozen in fear. It was then that I noticed the cell phone dangling from his ear. “I’m, I’m talkin to my girl,” he stammered.

I laughed so hard I cried. I laughed so hard Safety came to see what was the matter. And when he tried to explain, I laughed even harder.

In fact, I’m pretty sure when I see him this morning, I’ll laugh again.

So… here’s Sugarbutt, giggling her way into a new day.

Little White Church

There’s a little white church sitting round the bend

Grandaddy’s preachin on the wages of sin

Looks like it’s gonna be hot again

That’s how we spent the summers in Arkansas.

Picking muskidines til our hands were raw

Sitting round the radio yelling ‘go hawgs’

Uncle’s running coons with a flop eared dog

That’s how we spent the summers back in Arkansas

Sipping kool-aid eating chocolate moon-pies

What a way to live- what a way to die

Red dirt, dirt poor just the facts of life

Spending every summer back in Arkansas.

I hear those bare feet slapping on the gravel road

Did ya see that racer? Can ya catch that toad?

Jumping off the bluff into that old bluff hole

Laughing through the summer back in Arkansas

We would talk to each other on that old CB

Put our feet up on the table, try to watch TV

Just my aunts and my uncles

Grandmamma

Granddaddy

A bunch of cousins,

The dog

And me

Hillbilly summers back in Arkansas.

The Miracle

Open my eyes, the sun is rising

Draw in a breath, I’m still trying

To figure it out - I don’t know why

Why I’m still alive

You must have a job for me, Lord

And I must have a reason to be, Lord

Point me there and show me what you see

What do you want of me?

Show me a miracle

Everyday, you

Show me a miracle

In so many ways, you

Let me live, you let me love, you let me see

I need a miracle in me

You lifted the lame, and set them dancing

Touched blind eyes and gave them a chance to

Look on the one who thought even life wasn’t

Too much to pay

You just gave it away

And bound up the broken hearts, still they cried

Begging you to show them a sign

Jesus, I don’t see how they could be so blind

When I’m just trying to

See your miracles

Everyday

To see the miracles

You have proclaimed

You let me love, you let me live, you let me see

sometimes

I even see you in me

And - that’s a miracle

Out of The Darkness...

I don’t like darkness and I don’t like pain, in spite of the fact my own life has taught me that’s where the growth happens, that’s the most fertile soil for creativity. And yet, when it comes to dealing with it, I’m like a dog, turning around and around in my bed, trying to find a better way to lie down.

Sure. I don’t like pain. Who does?

In writing, as in art, my best stuff always comes when I work from dark to light. And yet, whenever I sit down to paint, I start with a white canvas. Light to dark. Why? Same thing happens when I write. I have no problem creating characters with interesting thought lives, witty dialogue and memorable experiences. Heck, I’ll even kill them off if I have to, but when it comes to hurting them… to prolonging their emotional pain, I freeze up like a February stream. Why?

Because single focus creates white space and white space pulls the eye away from the goal to the great empty nothingness  surrounding it. From there, the imagination begins to doubt. It asks what’s going to be there? What hasn’t happened yet? 

 Ironically, it is extremely difficult to cut darkness in at that point.

Darkness must be preexistent.

For example, don’t you hate it when you’re reading a book and everything is going too fine for the main character? Nervously, you wait for the other shoe to drop… only it never does? The story ends and you close the book feeling vaguely dissatisfied. No dragons were slain. No mountains scaled. Just lots of fluff without any fire.

Even worse is when the author adds drama as an afterthought.  They throw in a fiery plane crash and an outbreak of the bubonic plague late in the third act, as if the reader doesn’t realize  there are only five pages left in the book. How much suspense can be built in five pages?

Depth of character, it would seem, works best when it’s an organic process.

When I begin a painting with a black canvas, I'm in familiar territory: I know what I have to do. From the first touch of brush to canvas, there is nowhere to go but up and out of an inky pit of darkness. Slowly, the colors emerge as tiny rays of light begin piercing the black gessoed canvas, outlining form and shape, bringing the subject to life.

Interestingly enough, black space has the opposite effect of white space. White space in a painting distracts from the subject. The human mind wanders inside white space, creating its own storyline. But black space repels the viewer, frightening their attention back toward the center where the subject is happily nestled inside a secure halo of light.

Come in from the dark, the subject seems to say, stay here with me, where you’ll be warm and safe and happy.

Two months ago when I left home, I didn’t want to go back into that dark night. I wanted to stay on the ranch, in a shrinking halo of light.  I wanted to be warm and safe and happy, blissfully ignorant of the wolves clawing at the door.

But God knew better. He knew it was time for me to get back in the fight. 

Ignoring the whiny little girl with the I-don’t-wanna-go-to-battle-today excuses, he set me on my feet, dragged my steel-toed boots on, packed my lunchbox, stuffed a hardhat on my head and sent me packing into the fray with a loving swat to my backside.

Daily, I’m tempted to feel sorry for myself. Tempted to be a crybaby.

Clutching my SuperGirl lunchbox to my chest, I try to look into the darkness: to remember how much worse it can get. Broke isn’t the same as bankrupt and bankrupt isn’t the same as dead. Aging isn’t the same as cancer and cancer isn’t the same as dead. Alone isn’t the same as abandoned and abandoned isn’t the same as dead. 

In fact, if I step back and take a long view of my life, I realize that there is very little white space left. I am surrounded by a darkness filled with slain dragons and mountains scaled. And since I’m not dead yet, I’m pretty sure there are more waiting in the darkness. For all of us.

Game On

“That’s it!” I huff, entering the job trailer with a sharp slamming of the door behind me. New Boss looks up from his desk, a startled expression on his normally placid face. Stripping my heavy fleece lined jacket off my shoulders, I stomp the moisture from my (slipper clad) feet.

“It’s freaking summer everywhere else! 90 freaking degrees! I finally got a day off and it freaking snowed! And there’s bugs in the portajohn!” Freaking is my new favorite word.

The coat snags on my belt buckle. I give it a harsh jerk that snaps it free.

“What kind of bugs?” New boss asks.

I shoot him a sharp look. “An arctically-adapted spider.”

He nods knowingly. I return to my desk and crank up the heater. Civil Soup enters, leaving the door ajar while he helps himself to a fresh cup of coffee.

Shoving away from my desk, I stalk past him and re-slam the door. He looks up.

“This coffee smells funny.”

Smart mouthed Girl struggles against captivity. I fold my arms across my ribs in a vain attempt to thwart her escape.

“Did you put something in it?”

My lips part. The word arsenic balances on the tip of my tongue, wings spread. I clamp my jaws shut and go back to my desk.  The last time I checked, Smart Mouth Girl had nearly gnawed through the duct tape.

“What’s this?” he asks, dragging the can of Folgers Secret Blend out of its hidey hole behind the napkins. “Cinnamon Swirl? Who made this crap?”

I think about my words, measuring inappropriateness against getting fired. “I did. And no one else is complaining,” is what I decide to say.

“Well I am. It tastes like sh*t.”

The door opens and a young man enters. He is dressed in camo and a hard hat, his boots just as muddy as the next guy, and yet he likes froofy coffee in the afternoon.

Smart Mouth Girl breaks free with a gasp. “Civil Soup says the coffee tastes like sh*t,” she tattles. I sigh, slumping my brow into an open palm. Here we go.

“Well,” The Kid says. “Maybe he shouldn’t drink it.” He fills his thermos, winks and puts a dollar in the cup.

Later, after Civil Soup has retreated to his office, I am summonsed to New Boss’s doorway.

“Who buys the coffee?” he asks.

“Me.  Safety. Sometimes The Kid chips in.”

“Then make whatever you want,” he says, “and tell the runner to buy bug-killer for the portajohn. Make sure it’s for ‘arctically-adapted’ spiders.”

I turn to go, feeling both validated and dismissed... Smart Mouthed Girl sticks her tongue out at Civil Soup’s closed door.

Game on, she whispers.