Art Has Always Saved Me

I bought new watercolour brushes for the first time since I was in Windsor, England in 1987. I didn't look at the price tag and shocked myself when the 5 brushes I bought came to $29.95. Nothing really cost-wise, had they been red sables, which I have always preferred, they would have easily cost $60.00 to $70.00 dollars. The last brushes I bought had been at Boots on the High Street, along with some really neat watercolour pens and pots of paints. The day after I bought them, I rose early and walked to a bench lining the Long Walk and proceeded to paint a picture of another park bench close by.

Watercolours have been a staple art supply in my house since early childhood. My father was the real driving force in my learning to draw and paint. Dad would pack me up in the old Chevy Bel Aire and away we would drive to the deYoung Museum or the Palace of Fine Art. I would be enthralled at the fact that anyone could take paints and brushes and create a Renoir or Monet. Sometimes I would ask my Dad to pick me up and hold me so that I could look (but don't touch) closer at a painting. It was so amazing to see the brush strokes, proving to me that, yes, someone actually painted the picture. Up close, you could sometimes see the colours blending...just a minute line a hair's breadth...but enough to capture the eye. I still remember seeing a stroke like that in a Rembrandt painting where the crismon turned to orange...a faint trace of yellow...just a scratch of it peering through. You wouldn't have seen it if you were standing at normal viewing range, but the arms of my father made it possible.

From that time on, I have painted on sidewalks, walls, and rocks. I was disappointed as the pigments faded in the sun and bled off into the gutters in the rain. Later on, in high school, I took watercolours my sophomore year. My grandmother bought me a box of Binney & Smith artist's colours in a white plastic case. I remember sitting in the freezing classroom, listening to the instructor whose name I can't remember, droning on about how you have to see with your own eyes...not what people expect you to see. It was a passion...something to be felt...like when Renee Farnsworth had a leaf bug land on her shoulder in the middle of an outdoor painting class. I was absolutely fascinated at the green wings it had...so much like a leaf and the tiny beady blue eyes peering up helplessly as I grabbed it before she, still screaming, squashed it. I had to paint it. The painting never was displayed it school...and has long since disappeared in the many moves I've made throughout the years.

After my graduation from high school, I again found myself in art classes at the local technical college. Photographic developers, inks, printing inks, and the pungent scent of solvents came whaffing through the lower bowels of the college, blending with the smell of coffee, cinnamon buns and bacon from the cafeteria next door. I fell in love there...or lust...I'm not completely sure which... with a fellow student...all unreciprocated unfortunately...over coffee and discussions of art history, Gutenburg and who had the best prices in town for art supplies. I was in heaven in those classes until I had to take the rest of my core classes to graduate. Art was everything...health, P.E. and algebra seemed dull and hardly worth the effort.

On the walks home, I began to see angles, shapes, shades and nuances in the world around me. Provo in those days had huge horse chestnut and maple trees in front of the spooky, old BYU Academy building. The textures of the rain-soaked, ancient grey sidewalks, littered with wet autumn leaves in every conceivable shade of orange, red, brown and yellows plastered to it was gorgeous. I wondered how anyone could miss this...didn't they see when they walked down the street? Rich brown horse chestnuts rained from the denuded branches, occasionally hitting you in the head as the crows sat and laughed.

Old farm houses and fields took on a whole new meaning. Art became a secret language, one that my father had successfully transmitted to me as a child. It was my own world. The old train tracks up Provo Canyon could become beautful, spooky and sensuous all depending on the light during different seasons and time of day.

When I divorced my first husband in 1987 and went back to England, it was like coming home in many different respects. I had began to recapture myself with watercolours, pens and pencils. Poetry began to mingle more steadly with the art work...like a filling in a pie or pastry. I couldn't live without the colours or words painting something I had seen and had to share or capture in my mind.

Enter Jan McIntyre when I returned to the states. A sculptor, painter, and artist extraordinare, we were distant cousins who became close friends instantly one evening in a bar gathering of musicians. That group was something I will always treasure, even though we have gone our separate ways and Janny has long since passed. The art carried me through the victory of my first gallery showing of watercolors and wood burned items. It carried me past the pain of a failed marriage and into a new life. It held me together through a doomed relationship with a musician that was cursed from the start. Love or lust (definitely both! Oh, yes.), I am not quite sure. Love and lust for the creative life was a definite addiction...and like all junkies, I had to have more.

And then I met Tony in 1992. Tony was earthy, intelligent, well-read, foul mouthed, and the most beautiful man I had ever met...and he wanted me. He was the high school girl's dream. We became lovers within a month and never left each other's side for more than a couple days at a time. He encouraged me to paint, draw, and bought me a 35mm camera outfit. We explored eras; he was in love with the geometrics of art deco and I with the flowing sensuality of art nouveau.

Through the years I lived in arts and crafts stores; always on the search for some technique book, ink, medium or glue. He would stand there sometimes at the end of an aisle, hands on hips, head tilted, "Are you ready yet?" His patience was more immeasurable than he would ever let on or perhaps, realize. He was my muse and pushed me forward to experiment with using different mediums.

I began taking photo copies and painting them, using them in collages and putting them into journals. Beads and glass, their fine pure colours, intrigued me. Seed beads became another way of expressing myself through jewelry and then peyote stitch. Spirit bottles and loomed murals began to fill the walls. I bought beads and hoarded them, amassing some several hundred pounds, up until this summer when everything came to a horrible, sudden stop. Tony died on a beautiful, cloudless Sunday afternoon.

The last few months have been rain soaked. I have viewed the world through eyes every bit as unclear as rain washing down glass. Isolation and intolerable grief, along with with an incredibly acute loneliness has shut me off from the world and myself. I began searching through closets in my mind, frantically throwing open doors in dark hallways trying to find a reason for this or some momentary peace. My pens dried up with the heat and disuse and my beading loom covered itself in a fine veil of dust. The vintage mahogany dining room table I had claimed as my art center lay silent and cluttered with ideas and projects now completely gone by the wayside...until last Sunday.

Curiosity got the better of me. I found a small piece of watercolour canvas I had preped with Gesso last spring. It was gritty and I liked the way it felt under my fingers. In the buffet behind the table are my paints, pastels, and other implements. I pulled out a pallette, the old Binney & Smith box of colours and a few brushes from the cat jar. Armed with a glass of water and a rag, I began to paint for the first time in months. I had too much water on the canvas, and the human heart that I had painted began to bleed down the canvas in a happy accident, pooling at the bottom. I bled off the excess water and decided that it was perfect the way it was. Let it dry and rework it in a couple of days to get down the details.

Slowly, I am breaking free of the sorrow. Slowly, once again reaching for who I was and now am through watercolours and brush strokes.

Exiled into Memory

bones and beads

standing stones

are sentries of the passing

as the sand and rain

wash the slates clean

the river floods

thunder throws me back

to center

deeply

driving me down into the cave

that lies within me

where I silently leave offerings

to the Old Ones and Ancestors

and those of future days

drawing memories

on the walls

of my mind

Playing Ditch at Playland-at-the-Beach

It's too bright. The sky is lit with bits of frost and brilliant blue. Turning away, my mind goes to street scenes in grayscales, rain and the slick, sleek green and red of traffic lights blazing on water-darkened asphalt. Wet concrete, diesel and coffee blend in an pungent aroma taking me back years...

The beach was closed. It was a weekday and I had transferred onto the No. 18 Sloat, passing my junior high. I rode it out to La Playa and was the only passenger stepping off at the end of the line. The black bus driver stared at the girl in the lilac suede boots and crushed velvet maxi coat stepping off the bus. He had to wonder what I was doing at a closed amusement park, knowing I had ditched school. The driver got off the bus behind me, lit a cigerette and headed across the street to the cafe. I was alone.

Slinging my big purse over my shoulder, I walked toward the Merry-Go-Round. It was shuttered up and quiet. The loud caliopy music and organ tunes, silent. The strings of lights that hung between the Merry-Go-Round building and the funhouse swung forlornly in the clots of fog and wind. In the gathering gloominess, I walked down the alley towards Limbo. Thickening fog made corners soft and shadows deepen. The whole lane ahead of me was blanketed in moving mists and shadows, tricking my eyes into thinking I'd seen someone moving stealthily among the buildings and abandoned rides. White skeletal arms lay crossed under the giant grinning skull of the dark ride, while skeletal angels flew over a dreary picture window landscape behind. Doll heads and fake campy tombstones..."He Stood UP!"... took on an ominous feel. The place was different and I wondered why I was here.

...suede boots darkening on the edges of the soles where the puddles I so carefully avoided were seeping in...seeping in thick and sticky, sliding down into the chinks and crevices inside my mind. It moved so slowly below the icy feeling in my toes that I was unaware of the progress that it was making; shifting and changing me in ways I didn't realize. The salt air mixed with wind and fog and crystalized with tiny grains of sand. It clung to everything it touched...grimming the windows in an almost hopeless coat of grit that would need to be scrapped away before even trying to wash it. My finger traced patterns in it on the funhouse window...mocking Laughing Sal...daring her to make me stop. She just stood there... silent, freckle faced and gap toothed, head cracked at the neck as if she had been mugged. Stood there next to the odd, bug-eyed, beany capped creepy dwarf that was her window companion. The balancing clown around the corner, looked away. The walking charlies, frozen andriveted on their geared windmill posts...moved ever so slightly in the freezing salt winds blowing across the Great Highway.

My finger circled larger, clearing the window of the greasy sand. It was dark behind Sal. Moving up the sloping walkway and under the eaves, I climbed rather clumsily over the turnstile, pressed my hands to the glass on the door and peeked. The door creaked as I leaned on it. Looking down, I found the chains hadn't been secured and I was fighting the urge to transpass and see if I could get inside. Looking behind me toward the bus stop, I saw that the bus and it's driver had gone. No one in any direction.

Like an idiot, I found myself knocking on the glass. No foot falls. No noises from within. The wind was howling and it began to rain. What the hell! I grasped the red painted door and pulled. Slowly it opened. It was heavier than I had imagined it to be. I slipped quietly inside on tiptoe so my heels wouldn't alarm anyone inside to my presence. The wind had shifted, slanting the rain and making it tap on the windows. It poured off the old roof in streams. The sound of wind and rain roared and rushed, sending a shiver racing down my spine that I had never gotten in the place before. Then again, I had never been in there alone and in the dark.

Edging past the entrance to the gingerbread dowling of the mirror maze, I realized I would have to move quickly in case someone spotted me from the outside. Could I remember my way through it in the dark? Everything looked so different. I fought a momentary grip of panic in my stomach. Closing my eyes I felt the rush of exhileration at having the place to myself, to explore as I liked without detection...hopefully. I dashed through, right-left-right-right, and then left. I found myself before the huge rollers. Normally, they were rotating in colorful swirls, polka dots and zig zag's on their over-stuffed bodies. I had to fight my way through them, more difficult now because they weren't moving. Struggling over the last of the three layers of rollers, I finally freed my purse and myself and walked, boot heels clicking, into the darkened main hall. My footsteps echoed on the old wooden floors. Nothing moved. The Funhouse operator's booth was unmanned. No one was here.

I wondered if I shouldn't have barred the front door somehow to make sure I would be safe....but then, if somone had been here...?

Don't think about it. You'll freak out.

The thought of being locked in this of all buildings...with someone else I didn't know... inside...with me...don't think about it.

But...what if I do get locked in?

The stepplechase horses looked sad and forlorn. Looking to my right, I could see the two, tall, skinny, crazy staircases that normally slid either to and fro or side to side. The red one was tilted sideways at an insane angle, disappearing into the darkened gallery above. I didn't like that one even on the days the place was running. I used to have nightmares of falling from it. Best to save the climb for later when I was through exploring down here.

Instead, I walked the wavy boards of the uneven floors, for once not getting hit with the random shots of air coming up through the deliberate holes in the floor. They shifted under my weight crashing and creaking. I stood looking out the window now, behind Sal and saw the the rain was coming down in torrents. Headlights from a couple of passing cars bounced crazily through the old fashioned glass windows...accenting the bubbles and swirls in the glass on the floor in a weird witch's brew. The reflection made Sal look like she was crying, but no tears dripped from her face onto her faded blue coat. I moved away.

Walking over to the operator's booth, I peeked in at all the levers and lights on the control board. The mystery was gone of all the shooting air, noises, bells and whistles was gone. Hmmmph.

I skipped through the barrel, which had always made me sort of sick when I had been in it. The giant spiral-painted inside walls made me think of a huge, striped soda straw lying on it's side. I remember my friend, Tammy standing with her hands plastered against its walls as it turned her upside down in a stationary cartwheel. Across from the barrel was the disc, we had called it the record player. It sat still and empty of riders.

Suddenly, I felt sort of weird...watched. Looking out ahead of me and turning behind me, I saw no one, but the feeling of being watched was still there. Quickly, I dashed to the side of the large wooden slide and pressed myself up against a corner wall, peeking out. Quiet, listen. Nothing out there...no sounds but the wind and creaking of the building. Could someone be in the shadows upstairs? Surely, I would have heard them!

Moving back out from my hidey-hole, I cautiously looked up to the second floor, almost directly above me was one of the huge hanging blocks, part of the funhouse decor. There were three total, suspended by a corner edge of the block from the ceiling. On each side was a clown face. The clown faces were mechanical so they could move their mouths, blink, and roll their eyes. They were creepy when the place was lit up and you were surrounded by people. Now, they were hideous in the gloomy light, the disembodied white face leering down at me in a silent, open mounthed scream. I was both relieved and now frightened. What the hell was I thinking? No one knew where I was. Grandma had surely gotten a phone call by now from Mrs. Smullens in the Principal's office.

Hey, you're here now...look around. You are probably not going to get in anymore trouble than you're already in. I grabbed a potato sack, pulled off my boots and climbed the stairway to the top of the slide. It got darker as I climbed...the top in total darkness. I could here the rain beating on the wall beside me...and something else...a scratching coming from the wall as well. No, in front of me...the top of the stairs. God! Rats! Gotta be a rat, right?! Jesus! A huge, big freakin' rat from the sound of the scratching.

I turned and ran as quickly as I could down the stairway, flinging the potato sack, I grabbed my boots and sat on the bottom step of one of the crazy stairs. One boot clutched by the top in my fist, I could bash whatever it was with my boot and then, hopefully, get the hell out of there. I waited. Nothing. No rat. No boogie man. God, I am feeling so stupid!

Ok, my imagination was getting the best of me. I put my boots back on and decided to climb the staircase up to the gallery. I flung my purse around my neck and with both hands on the railings, I decended. I hated heights and still do. I had to force myself not to panic halfway up and look down. Making it to the top, I stepped over to the long bank of windows. Above the funhouse mirrors and rows of box illusions, were windows. Oddly, the second floor gave the illusion of being darker when you looked up from downstairs. It wasn't. I could see the runnels of window grime mixing with bits of gravel and debris floating with the rain from the roof down to the pavement below. It was after all, November.

Moving to the walking charlie's, past a frozen Maggie, a rolling pin raised in her left hand, ready to strike her smart-assed, macho-mouthed husband, Gigs, in their mechanical display kitchen. I pushed the button and waited for them to move. They didn't. I guess I hadn't really been expecting it.

I stood beind the Walking Charlie's now. I couldn't clearly see the Cliffhouse. Dimly, the outline of Seal Rocks could be made out, shrouded in fog and ocean waves. The waves were really high, crashing against the sea wall, where we had hung in the summer. The foam and spray flew up at least five feet in the air above the wall. I was hypntosed by the weather outside. The rain slanting down against the large blue, yellow, and red stacked-box looking decor of the cafe and penny arcade across the street. I could see the Mad Mine beyond and the weird op-art painted "Tilt" next to it. The dark, diving bell stood on it's perch above its water tank. The only lights I could see were from the street lamps, the cafe where I bought soft-serve cones, and the distant Cliffhouse. Somewhere beyond Lincoln Park, the sound of the fog horns by the Golden Gate Bridge blaired their warning to the ships entering the bay. I couldn't image being out there on a ship in this weather. I remembered suddenly where I was and that I wasn't supposed to be here, either.

I turned and came face to face with a figure, tall and hideously out of proportion. It loomed up, intimately close to me and I shrieked. It was another funhouse mirror...a couple of them, actually. I hadn't remembered them being here in this spot the last time I had come. I guess thay moved them since then. Either way, I had almost peed my pants, I was so scared. My heart was racing and pounding. No, I had to leave. Exploration time was over. I needed to face the music.

I made my way to the front door and noticed the padlock for the chains lying on a ledge next to the exit door. Perhaps the operator had forgotten it there in his haste to get home the night before. I grabbed the open lock and pushed my way through the revolving bars. I was outside and getting completely drenched. Running up the ramp to the front door, I pulled the chain together and clicked the old Master lock shut. No one would be the wiser. Turning around, I ran into a chubby, middle-aged guy wearing a water-darkened, grey raincoat. His cigar was feebly trying to stay lit in all the wind and rain. His pork pie hat was drenched and flopped down, water-logged, on both sides of his balding head. he looked like a reject version of Rocky's brother, paulie.

"Hey kid, what the hell ya doin' up there?"

Smiling to myself. Hey! He hadn't seen me! "Just looking, mister" I said.

"Yeah, well shouldn't you be in school? It's fuckin' rainin! You crazy? Get outta here."

He was fishing in his pocket. I could her keys rattling and jingling.

I ran down the ramp and across the alley to the cafe. Bustling through the door and plopping myself down on the bar stool, I got stared at, wide-eyed, by the waitress with orange lipstick and matching hair. I was the only customer there. The waitress asked if I wanted anything. I said I wanted the fish and chips plate and a coffee.

I hadn't eaten school food in months and saved my money for such excursions... when I could get them. I loved the fish and chips here. I never remembered the name of the place, but it was right next door to the Merry-Go-Round, facing the Great Highway. It had a wonderful dining bar with red, marblized upholstered stools that were bolted down to the floor. A bank of windows lined the west wall so you could watch peple and cars go by. On the outside around the roof line, the cafe was decorated by a facade of little, tiny cottages, each one different from the other.

The wiatress brought my coffee and a small little pot of real cream. Honest! Real, thick sweet cream! I emptied it and dumped two teaspoons of suger in my coffee. The steam felt wonderful in my face as did the heat of the mug on my hands. I love coffee, but days like this made it extra special. I laughed, again attracting another stare from the waitress. She came over, leaned on the counter....

"Ok, what's your story?" she blew a small, cracking bubble from between her orange lips.

I told her I'd skipped school and that I had thought it was really funny to eat my last meal here before going home and getting killed by my grandmother. She grinned and said she's done about the same a few times. I didn't mention my escapade in the funhouse. She turned to the fry cook station behind her and grabbed the plate holding my lunch. I remember the taste of that meal to this day, the odor of the fries and the crispy-light, buttery flavor of the breading on the fish. The tartar sauce was thick with pickles and absolutely perfect. From that time since, I have loved a squeeze of fresh lemon on my fish.

I could go on about the trip home on the No. 18 Sloat bus, transferring to the No. 28 at 19th and Sloat, with the final transfer to the No. 14 at Mission and Geneva to the top of the hill. There isn't really any point, except to say that it was dark and rained the whole way, dulling my former excitement with dread of what I would find awaiting me at home.

When I finally walked down the hill on San Barbara Avenue and up the stairs to our cottage in the back of the Knight's House, I noticed that it was dark inside. Grandma commented that I was home a little late, then said the power had been out all day.

Late?

She said Mrs. Knight had come home from West Portal Lutheran (coincidentally the same school I attended) about 11:30. She had picked up her son, Chris. She had told my Grandma that the power had been out at the school for hours. They finally let the kids out at 11. It was now 1:30 in the afternoon. The bus trip usually took about an hour from school to the top of the hill.

It dawned on me then..... Grandma didn't know. They had never called her for some reason. Back then, a blackout still left you with telephone service. I guess they had their hands full with keeping the kids in line...all Kindergarten through 9th Grades!

That year, 1969, we had watched from our cottage, houses slide down the hills in Broadmore due to the extensive rain. The rain had undermined all sorts of places within and outside of the Bay area. The City was a mess.

It turned out that I had played hookey the first day of series of big Holiday storms we were going to have that year. Cars and buses had gotten stranded. Flooded streets backed up with debris and choked with rainwater. In some spots the sewers had backed up. Parents were warned not to let their little darlings stomp around in their galloshes out in the gutters and puddles. In the worst cases, like Broadmore, people watched their cliffside houses slip into the ocean.

I had been really lucky. I never gotten caught either playing hookey or trespassing that day. I have to admit that I felt bad about trespassing. I didn't vandalize or steal anything, other than some really great memories I took away with me. I had just wanted to look, unmolested at a place that even at that time, I knew was a museum piece...a fading part of Americana.

The old funhouse is gone, torn down with the rest of Playland-at-the-Beach in September of 1972, but I will never forget my couple of hours alone in the funhouse and the ghosts of Walking Charlies and Laughing Sal.

The WInd and the Rain II

And with you comes the rain
the winds and
the waters of the sea

Gentle
always gentle in the moment
tea and thunder
lightning
and the rain
with and
without you
and

always

always the scent
of wet pavement in a Windsor summer
decades ago

powerless against the tide of flooding memories
half forgotten bits
of torn photographs
carried on the waves from the sand
drifting

yes

smells of dust and diesel
wisteria and fallen leaves tangle
in the ocean tang

roar and boom
the gulls call
fallen angels against the fading phantoms
of yesterday's amusements
strings of smoke blow
from a lovers cave
hidden in the rocks
rimmed edge of ruins
laid tretcherous on the wind and rising tide
black with the waves and dark grey against
the sky

the fog horns blare

leaving me alone
and restless
hopeful in the wind and the rain
and always the waters
and that you
will come

Do You?

Dark. Muggy and no clouds in sight. Languid, but tranquil in the dusky light as I lay across the sofa.

Thoughts of the wind and the rain and the water. Always the rain and the green grey sky of a September afternoon from years ago. Wind howling and the lightening scattering like cat scratches across the dark and troubled sky. You remember...

remember it like it was yesterday...moments ago and the thoughts pour down just like the rain did that dry day...we hadn't had rain for months and were praying for it....

Ocean waves, the muted green silk frothed with water lace rippling on the rocks at the back of the Sutro cave rippling as my skin in the cold of the fog splintering my nerves on tiny skewers. The shell, pink and white and oh, so fragile, lay in your hand as you thought in the dry, white heat of the desert....you couldn't say a word...not to anyone...but I knew....

knew like the lines that cross my palm or the hunger at the end of the day...hunger coming in waves...the heat of the day rising in mirage from the asphalt...making you think...

wonder.....

why the spirit dances in the dead of night when no one but the stars see...whirling under the branches to the scent of roses and leaves crisping in the summer heat...you are a voyeur, aren't you ...I've said that before , but it's true...like it or not.....yards of cloth sway in breezes and body movements that leave you drunk with desire and longing to touch...you won't...won't allow yourself to do that...and she knows...can feel your breath on her neck down her arms...the breath that is the wind carrying her in the dance...your heartbeat marking the tune as her feet glide and she twirls leaf-like in your heart...is alone and will be so through time...so close you can feel her, smell her scent but never touch her...make her yours...she pulls off the veil to reveal your own face looking back at you and you flinch and then realize she is a mirror and you are the mask...forever hiding from yourself and from her....and you believe in your safety and you believe you are untouched by your desire.....alone in a confessional the little panel slides back to reveal...what?

...staring at the screen only shadows beyond and you still won't reveal it...won't tell you the truth until finally the desperation drives you dizzily down the wire and YOU tell her what you have longed for...what you wish and what you fear...and there is silence greeting you...is she listening...eavesdropping to what is said between the lines...and she softly tells you to light a candle for her soul and say 3 Hail Marys..because surely you are driving her to a hell of your...her own creation clawing at the bedsheets and howling into the dark...unheard

what is this thing that makes you think

you are so civilized?

Your Own Version and Mine

A thorn sticks in my finger and it penetrates right into my brain. There are times when I am afraid of my thoughts...scared of what my mind will conjure up for it's own enjoyment or torture.

I have been writing since 5 this morning. Unable to sleep, the poems, no, the emotions ran over in my mind ceaselessly. If I purgue this, will it leave me alone? How many times do I have to purgue it? It drones on and on as a nun over her rosary.

rerun....

change the channel

twilight zone and they are all the same show.

popcorn for breakfast with oatmeal and a dash of brown sugar with my tea. Okay, let's see where this leads me.

Where it leads you.

There is a dark side to me...glittering, knife-edged and very, very sharp. I am throwing it all up on paper, so to speak...the beautiful, bold, insecure and bizarre.

...the smell of snuffed out candles in the evening air and church confessions banging my head against the dark, on the wood confessional and the words of someone anonymous giving me meaningless absolution for sins I haven't even thought of committing.....wouldn't in a million years.

I count candles and rain drops, and tears that were shed over trivialities and nonesense whose intense meaning in my past look absurd in the now. I keep counting them. Collecting them as scattered beads on the ground, something precious to be put away until I have the patience to re-string them and turn them into something truly beautiful.

The night is young and the spirit is believing in the wax and lighted string and wisps of smoke tangled up in prayers so intimate and unspoken aloud . The silence within me echos up and the choir screams. The spirit boils.

Do you see it? Do you understand ?

So much I pick up and see. So much that goes unnoticed in everyday hurrying to work.

People pass by the building fascade and never stop and REALLY see it. They don't know about the beautiful tiles and the rococo. They don't see the gargoyal sitting placid and ready to spout water during the rainfall. The see the piece of yesterday's newspaper and dog crap by the doric column and have no idea there is a sky above. Eyes to the pavement. Attention to the bits of litter and trash.

I see it, too. I just have the nerve to raise my head. That makes me dangerous. That makes me know too much.

Laying down at Sutro gate is a cement lion. He waits and watches the decades roll by with the fog from the Pacific Ocean. He is covered in sun, covered in dew, cloaked in rain. His roar is frozen. He is wise and aware of everything that has passed before him in the stream of traffic and time that has flowed down the hill over looking the ruins of ghosts and laughter and dancing in the dark to the orchestra after oysters and champagne. Dancing on the floors of a building that you can't see above the ruins and the tunnel and the boom of the waves at high tide when the spirits run with your candle through the darkness and snuff it out on the rocks and water at the end of cave. Dancing with their ghost lights and dreaming of us as a fantasy in their mind.

Madness, you whisper.

Silent. So much is.

I Remember (Just a Little...)

I Remember (Just a Little)

Come through the rain

mists and memories

Dreams play on in the night

It has been a kiss

an embrace from heaven

Sweet perfume

as if flows by me

through me

Calling

Dreaming out

Drifting and drinking in the darkness

to stop the momentum

and grasp your hand

copyright 1995 All Rights Reserved.

Lost Things on the Highway

Lost things...lost people...moments and memories. It's strange how sometimes a piece of time that is so important in a special moment gets drowned in your mind and then resurfaces. A trigger point gets touched and suddenly you're transported thirty years back....

into a old brick colored Ford that is driving through a pine and aspen filled canyon in Utah at sunset. The Moody Blues "Knights in White Satin" is playing on the radio. It was the end of autumn. The seats were warm and soft. I was sitting next to this beautiful 18-year-old boy and wishing that this moment could last, though I knew that it wouldn't.

Driving back from California last night at twilight, I was again in a canyon, surrounded by pines and aspen...a passenger counting the white lines. It was raining heavily and the highway was a dark, oily snake in our headlights. My husband and I had stopped in Colfax and bought hot coffee at the Starbucks. The smell of the pines mixed with the coffee and the rain swept air became heavy, crisp, chilly and intoxicating.

For one brief moment the sun shone through the clouds just enough to light the sky to a deep, angry pink. A flash of the something raced in my mind...Terry, a song, and the canyon. So long ago, I thought. In a swallow of coffee, the sky had changed and the colors inside and outside of my head were gone.

The drive to and from California does this to me everytime. Maybe it is the forest or a combination of things, such as the rain or the smell of strong coffee on a cold night. Time passages.

The stretches of forest on Highway 88 (and 49, 120, 50 or 80) are beautiful and yet disturbing. Staring off into the thick woods, I wonder what lurks out there past the low hanging branches and the misty thickets. My mind stirs the witch's brew of images, words, and music, especially when I'm on the road. The whine of the tires on ashalpt, clicking past the fences and telephone poles all creates a music of it's own....he song comes on the radio. I relish the moments of now....."and I love you....yes, I love you...oh, how I love you."