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.

Oh Happy Day!

This week has been totally crazy. It started out with a personal issue: a bit of a legal disruption… apparently my attorney didn’t file all the paperwork he was supposed to file. This is causing ummm… stress. With an emphasis on the SSSSSSS!

For a few days, while he was avoiding my calls and I was developing an intimate phone-relationship with his voice mail, I started to wonder whether I was divorced or not. I mean, all the papers were together. Maybe he didn’t file those either?

I did the only logical thing: I began doing an online file search on myself. I even subscribed to one of those invasive people-finder thingies that allow you to have an insane amount of information on perfect strangers.

Except I was spying on myself.

This is just… wrong. On so many levels.

Not to mention, it was embarrassing. No wonder no one has stolen my identity! I'm boring.

He finally emailed me. Yes, I’m divorced, but no, we don’t have an LLC. So now either my ex-husband or myself could destroy the ranch financially, should we so choose. Ironic.

And then, at work, we had an evacuation. Whoo-hooo. Could it have been on a warm day? Could it have been after I went to the blue room? No. I got to stand on the highway for 45 minutes on the coldest morning of the week tweaking like a puppet on meth. Of course.

At the end of the week, I got a call that someone is going to arrive at work to serve someone else with some sort of mystery papers. Nothing like a little tension in the office. Apparently, no one is immune to fear of the words ‘you’ve been served.’

In the words of my granddaughter: Oh Happy day!

Happy, happy day!

You know what? I’m starting to get a little pissed off. I’m ready to have one of those 'happy days.' I’m ready to have several in a row. Like… whole years of happiness. I don’t know what it’s going to take to get there. I don’t know what it’s going to cost me. I don’t have much left to give… but today I am going to choose to move toward that goal. Purposefully, intentionally, deliberately.

One step at a time.

I will get out of this house today. Go somewhere. Even if it’s only Walmart.

(Looking outside)

Sigh. I suppose it would be a good idea to go drag out the winter coat first.

A Woman at the Well

I been doing this forever, God, turning hours into days

And I know I’m only worth what a man sees fit to pay

Don’t even whores need bread and water,
even whores too tired to pray?

I guess not.  I’m just a woman at a well

I wear bells to hear them jingle

Like the laughter of a child

That I will never hold against me

Never kiss them as they cry

And I wear veils because they cover

All the things I want to hide

All the scars the wars the battles

All the weary working miles

Dear God, I’m tired. 
I am the woman at the well.

                                             

I clean the house and pay the bills,

take out the trash, wipe up the spills

Drive kids to school and football games
and home again…

After the kids are bathed and fed,

the dishes washed, school papers read,

I take a shower, climb in bed and try to feel
Alive.

Alarm clock rings, I’m out the door

It’s barely quarter after four

To beat the rush and be the one 
who offers more

Coffee for breakfast, and for lunch,

served over schedules, forms and such,

I don’t have time for nine to five

I just survive. Im just a woman.

at a well.

And I wear suits because they cover

All the things I want to hide

All the worries and the hurries and

All the weary working miles

I have to fake it til I make it, but oh

God, I am so tired.

I’m just a woman,

Just a woman at a well.

I been sitting by this well for nearly fifty seven years

And in all this time of waiting Lord I’ve cried a million tears

Thinking surely someone somewhere’s gonna see me sitting here

But all they see is just a woman
A woman at a well