Well…hi! Here I am… sitting in front of my giant fan, floor model, since my overhead slowed down to about 3 RPM’s.

It seems that when you accidentally stick your 8 ft bamboo ceiling brush in the rotating blades, it shuts the sucker down. I would have a better chance at booking Britney Spears to fix the fan then I would a Merida electrician. You call,  leave at least four messages with the wife and then the electrician returns your call. A week later, he enthusiastically states that he’ll be at your home the next day at 9 AM.  To that date and time, you add 2 weeks and 7 hours.

So, you will wait for him on the 14th day following the confirmation call… at 4PM. The plumber is the same… but you should subtract a day from the equation… I do not now why. When the repair guy does show up, you will be just going out the door for another appointment, which you will have to reschedule. You will greet the repairmen with the same level of enthusiasm that you would greet any leader of the free world, or some Queen or King person who happened by the house. They would be more significant in your life. Tonight, my friend Debbie called me to say goodbye since she is leaving for her (other) home (in Tucson) at 2 AM tomorrow morning.

She has spent the last year reconstructing and redecorating her new B&B in Merida. Her existing B&B in Tucson has been written up in the New York Times and The Architectural Digest of Spain. During her call, I could hear her sloshing through water as she told me that the roof was ” leaking “.  She was surveying her tastefully decorated interior at the time… preparing to leave town despite the thunderstorm and the reality that her contractor had cut a few corners on the roof job. I love the spirit of my friends here. She arranged for another contractor- friend to come and pour tar on the roof tomorrow, since she is headed out of town as planned.  “I’m not worried,” she said, as the water sloshed about her ankles. “After all, the renter isn’t coming for another three days.”

Last Saturday, I went to the performance of the Regional Theater, which is about 30 kilometers from Merida. You sit on stone benches…with cushions… and watch the everyday life of a typical pueblo. The whole town engages in the play (407 people). You sit and watch as if you were on a hillside looking down at the town. The actors play themselves and their lives… there are religious celebrations, children playing games, women cooking, men doing traditional ceremonies, and colors… so many colors… of the costumes… of the colors of Mexico and the Yucatan. The children dance in unison… beating out the rhythm of the Yucatan through their dance steps… a hundred of them together… the girls looking like blooming flowers in their huipiles ( flower embroidered dresses), and the boys in white with the red bandanas dropping from their waists. This is our culture displayed, and it is beautiful and moving. The dance, “El Toro” made me cry… it was an enactment of the bull ring… with dancers… it was magnificent. Everywhere you go, in this precious land, you are surprised by beauty and culture that is so understated… so shy.

I have 10 directors from the tourist bureau coming for dinner at my restaurant tomorrow night.  I have spent a month showing my face frequently in their offices to get them here. They have changed the reservations several times but… tomorrow, they are mine… to cook for… and to feed.  I call my food ” The New Yucatecan Cuisine”. I do all the cooking and even the serving because I am broke now. In the future, I’ll have people to help me serve, and even prepare the meals.  Now, I really like to work hard and see where the glitches are. Actually, the restaurant is becoming known in Merida, which is great. The dinners have been fine… under the stars… in the garden… by candlelight… with soft and romantic Yucatecan guitar music… and the food is sensational. So they tell me.  My sons still remind me of the days when we arrived home… after my psychiatric nursing job… and their daycare… when I threw a package of chicken legs in the microwave and served them with catsup. It’s different when you have two tired youngsters wrapped around your legs begging to be fed. They now are big fans of gourmet food… miles away from the chicken fingers and corn dogs.

And the rains do come… filled my rubber 8×8 pool tonight with just rainwater. But with the rain, we have a different variety of ants … big, honking, WWF ants that could carry away a sofa. There’s an ant for every season here… small as a pinhead and big as three raisins stuck together.  I saw ten of the small guys moving a cat crunchy up a wall.  I was so impressed with the team spirit, that I let them live. Then there are the big guys that mule a huge cat crunchy all alone. You see this huge brown thing going across the floor…thinking it’s a mutant form of bug… then you realize it’s a large ant with a cat crunchy on its back… it’s inspirational… they get to live, too.  And the rains do bring in the real scary bugs. I had a black scorpion in the living room that I could have used a lobster measure on… huge critter, tail up, claws out… all that scorpion action. I nailed him with a shovel. The huge spider-thing guy came in again, the guy with all the extra parts hanging off him… like little claws and additional legs… ugh… ugh… ugh. My friend, Bud (who lives in Merida) asked me to put one in a jar for him since he has never seen one in his houses… here or Belize.

I said that I would put a leash on the freako spider… and tie it to the pole outside his house. He said that when he lived in Belize, a scorpion stung his partner on the hand… their house was on a remote island and his partner freaked.  He of downers… I wouldn’t care if I was in a scorpion pit… it would all be OK. There are a lot of places here that are a tad remote for prompt medical attention.  I have cats and cats and cats. Four are officially mine… been neutered… vet check ups and all that. Four others also live on the patio and wait for food, which I always give them… thanks to the huge Costco Discount bags.  And now the females are bringing their children… and the males are doing this gladiator thing on the patio. We have no animal control here… probably the Catholic Church would condemn it anyway and create a patron saint of cat pregnancies. They still like everything and everybody to have babies… without any financial support from the church.  One woman I met had 23 children… can you imagine keeping the names and the birthdays straight? It’s better now… some women choose tubal ligation, and a chance at supporting their families.

Many women have husbands, but many also have partners who are not involved with the family, and have left for other people and places. The difference here… as opposed to the US… is that we have no AFDC or social security for deserving women. I’m finally going to Holbox… a cool island near here… to dive.  It will be so fine to be under the water again… weightless… among the spectacular reefs of the Yucatan.  Oh… and please go to Iluminado Tours (that’s iluminado) website and see what else I’m doing here. There are links to my restaurant and to the tours we offer. Check out the Casa Santa Ana web site next to Debbie’s picture… and… please… send the Iluminado Tours website to all your friends. That would be cool. I miss you all… but… I am so in love with Merida and Mexico that a USA lifestyle is now impossible. You should visit this incredible place….it is so beautiful.

Resistance to remarriage and partnership that gained momentum with each solo trip, and passing year. I feared that in becoming a “married woman” I might lose the courage to be alone… the courage that I had accumulated like frequent flyer miles.

I had learned to overcome the innate fear that grips and immobilizes some women as they approach what is new and challenging. When I first started to travel alone, I would sit paralyzed in the boarding lounge… feeling a panic attack begin its clutching grasp in my stomach. It would have been easy to flee through the automatic doors, hyperventilate in my car, and return to the comfort and sameness of the routine awaiting me at home.

But, even though I was afraid of what might lie ahead in an unknown land, I was more terrified of living a life of mediocrity. I could not contend with relinquishing the intoxicating thrill when my plane landed in a place that was completely strange to me. And, I knew that I would have to learn to move with the vibrations of the place. The islands taught me so many things about myself, and I would return home with a bit more worldliness and independence packed inside me like an overstuffed suitcase.

I have met many women who believe that they could never travel alone. The experience of organizing an excursion on their own, contending with delays, and dealing with difficult situations, appears to be unbearably and overwhelmingly complex. To me, traveling alone brings on a state of exhilaration. The challenge of getting from point A to B… without becoming dehydrated, lost or stranded…  is far less dangerous then a stroll downs many streets in America.

Once, on a lengthy trip from Rio San Juan to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, I was the only Anglo women packed among the commuting Dominicans and their baggage. The bus passed vast palm forests that projected patterns like antique lace against the deepening purple background of evening. It was the first time in my life that I was a minority… the obvious one. I thought of what the experience is like for a refuge or an Afro-American woman… riding on a very white bus in the United States. There is the subtle sting of fear when one is different and obvious. On that Dominican evening, I learned humility as the bus swayed and creaked towards the city.

Quiescent passengers were starring out the window at the swooping fruit bats… Or affectionately stroking the nodding heads of the sleeping children in their laps. Some, like me, were lost in their own thoughts. Although I was alone and knew none of the other passengers, I was overcome with a sense of peace and place.

As the night gathered into darkness, and the Southern Cross appeared above us, I suddenly became aware of the words “alone” and “loneliness”. I knew, at that moment, that those words would never be synonymous to my life. I was comforted by that thought as I lay my head against my canvas suitcase, and became lost in sleep… lost in sleep, and lost to the seduction of an awaiting adventure.

Dear man, Thank you for the compliments… and… I must say, you’ve made a significant and impressive contribution in media and design. Your professional accomplishments and creativity in itself… should keep you mold-free for years. M-m-m-m…(Do I like baseball?)… let’s see… that’s the game played with the white ball, guys run around to bases, chew gum, and get in each other’s faces and try for home runs, which are a good thing. My sons are ever amused by my ability to be so enthusiastic at a sports event… and have less then a clue as to what’s happening. Brett lives across the street from the Giants’ ball field in San Francisco… and is a heavy duty baseball fan, although we are… New Englanders and Red Sox people… baseball infidelity is not acceptable.

Last evening, my home was loaded with friends. I had invited 14 chums to dinner… and I just dragged the last sack of wine bottles to the dumpster, which counts as aerobics for today. The menu included… pork tenderloin with a caper sauce… risotto with wild mushroom/nutmeg sauce… seafood Alfredo(my way)… lemon/rosemary carrots… asparagus with roasted cashews… warm spinach/basil salad with prosciutto and walnut dressing… smoked salmon/caviar spread on whole wheat biscuits…  pan -fried Brie with apples and roasted almonds… blueberry cobbler with vanilla ice cream… and… Strawberry/banana tart on a cream/banana base… beer/walnut/whole wheat bread.  Yup…I love to cook. And having friends in my home to experience it… is so neat. They have welcomed me to Bakersfield… and I appreciate their kindness. Diversity was alive and well at the table… Kuwait… Hungary… Mexico… China… and Australia all represented… very cool night.

One son doing the “search” in Montana(?)… as long as it’s not on the campus of the Aryan Nation, it’s cool. Ah…I recall my search at 21 ( much cheaper to find yourself in the early 70′s)… across America in a converted Corvair van… with two Siamese cats, hair to my waist, old jeans with peace symbols. People were nice… times were good.

Flying… and the search for adventure… that should do it. But I’d sign on for the 40-hour course… even with your skills at crossword puzzles, you could still forget the function of this button or that gauge… it happens. Only twice have I been convinced that the plane I was traveling in wasn’t going to make it… would definitely crash. After which… I could be easily buried in a single-serving Chinese takeout carton… following the coroner’s identifying me by my expensive dental crowns.  One flight originated in Bogota, Colombia; the other was a twin-engine thrill ride over the Bahama islands on the way to Abaco. Both entailed serious, big lightning, dark nights and shaking metal frames. You can also throw in a lot of  vomiting Colombians on the Bogota stint, a priest loudly reciting the rosary on the Bahamas deal… all enhancing the near-death experience.  But.. we all lived and boarded many more planes to many more exotic places.

Could Robert Stack really fly? Or did he just look good in a leather helmet and a flowing scarf?  I’d go for the outfit if I were you… throw in a leather pilot jacket that you’ve repeatedly backed over with your car and you have the look… competence should exude from the attire alone. I think I’ve flown with that instructor in the Bahamas. Ah…did he snap his fingers on the gauges before he took off, to get them to work?… no response… take off anyway? I also admired the talents of a pilot who landed on the Grenada runway while one plane was still preparing to take off… split seconds to spare.

Ah… the Russian experience: cold snow… warm love… and the notes of song evaporating in foggy breaths… that was a fine response… you did well.  I, too, was once ever-so-taken with a Polish man who spoke Czech, English and Russian, a transplant to Canada before the Russian invasion and slaughter. The cobblestone streets of Montreal, a fire-lit, intimate, Russian cafe… white feathers of snow dancing outside the window… a heart-crushing violin solo of impossible love… just a memory now… long,long ago. Not meant to endure past the winter season. There were groups of Czechs and Russians at all the man’s parties. ” Jay-nee”, they would slur, “We have… other vodka now… you drink now… You do not refuse to drink with a Checz.  It is an insult”.  UGH… they made me miss a flight out of Canada with their endless toasts. After 5 frozen vodkas, I fancied that I knew all the words to the Russian ballads… and loudly sang along with the guys.  That’s why I can truly relate to the male kissing thing… it just happens. Once, I kissed a bloated garden toad on a dare… but he wasn’t Russian.  I like to kiss people better.

Your cat is great… he looks like a fine chap. I like his color and his attitude. I’ve owned about 12 Siamese in my lifetime… all gentle slobs who didn’t have a clue about being temperamental. Besides Lorenzo, I have MiMi… supposedly a torti point Siamese from the Animal Refuge League. Before I entered her life, she was living with a giant gobbler turkey… in a barn… hence, interesting bonding traits with birds have developed.

At this moment, I am at work… obviously… someone on life-support would be more productive then I am. Usually, I’m pretty motivated but the development of work plans and revisions of psychiatric practice standards isn’t stimulating my remaining brain cells.  I love community mental health services, and I directed crisis services for 5 counties in Maine, 7 ER’s, and a bunch of crisis housing operations.

It was a glorious, creative accomplishment, but now I want more time… not less. And another management position would restrict me to only weekends off… with weekdays filled with totally crazy people, the discontented patient rights advocates, the methamphetamine addicts, and just the pure sociopaths with guns and no conscience. The draw for me has always been to create something dynamic for the mentally ill people who can not care for themselves… I sound like a Ms. America contestant … but it’s all true. However, I don’t know if I have the desire to… once again… devote a huge chunk of energy to the cause. I’d rather design hats and dive on the Baja, and swim in the moonlight.

PS. I took the position.

When my dad was hospitalized for congestive heart failure… because his heart could no longer support the person he was… his laughter, kindness, and generosity… my Mom decided to keep him on life support. The physicians… unable to face the cycles of life… convinced her. He was a proud man… and the machines, the monitors, the IV’s… the constant beeps and bleeps were not of his world. The hospital is not a place to die. We often cling to this life’s routines because we hope for a feeling of absolution before we leave… tie up all the loose ends. We are only human. All of us wish we had done it a bit better.

We removed the tubes and wires from my Dad and turned off the machines.  One of the sweetest men I have ever known was at peace. I wish he had died at home with us… not in the stark environment of the intensive care unit. My profound sadness was almost selfish… that Christmas would never be the same again… many things would never be the same… I was the full grown woman making the decision. He had raised me with strength, courage, and integrity. I felt it was right. N ow I’m crying…for you and me. If I could take a small piece of your pain and carry it for you, I would. It is so hard. I’ll sit with you… in my thoughts… and lace my fingers through yours… it is a tribute to your father that he is loved.

More nurse stuff…

Here I am at my hospital office… a break in the day’s work… from writing the quarterly report summary… snore, snore. My boss had to leave early because his 82-year-old father was busted at his assisted living apartment for saying  “sexually inappropriate remarks” to a female ambulance driver.  Is she kidding…82? And he still remembers sex? The ambulance driver needs to come here and hang out with the crack heads and glue huffers for awhile. They’ve made an art form out of “sexually inappropriate.” There are so many patients talking to themselves in the hallway that it’s difficult to get a word in… conversations with Jesus, God, dead relatives, aliens, etc.  I just asked one of the shouting, psychotic males what was going on. He replied that he was ” just working out some stuff with a few of my voices”. Cool.  Another male patient got punched in the eye by an angry peer for disclosing the poker hands of other players. We take Texas Hold’em very seriously here and bowling matches have all the intensity of Wimbledon.

The last trip/flight I made, I took a carry-on… forgetting there was perfume in it.  Geeze… I almost had  the director of Homeland Security signing a one-way voucher for the Guantanamo Bay  shuttle… what drama and, to confirm my terrorist status, I was also drinking a bottle of contraband water. What was I thinking? It’s difficult to stay ahead of the style game with all my silver accessories beeping… and my custom made cowboy boots in my hand.

Anyway, I had ruminated+++  about buying the bottle of  “Amazing Grace” perfume (by Philosophy)… my absolute favorite… at the Nordstrom counter in San Francisco. I know there’s a lot of superfluous detail here but… I have to get it out. I’m inundated with symptoms of perfume PTSD… and flashbacks.  I watched, while experiencing actual pain, a very large (corn-rowed to the hilt… with an additional little protruding- hair-cap-thing-in-the-front… and an abundance of gold neck chains… looking very much like she pasted a “Walmart  Gold Sale” ad to her chest ) woman do the, “This is against the rules” national security monologue.

As I stood in front of her… time stopped.  I watched as her latex-free, gloved hand (which covered 5 colorful, perfectly shaped, zebra-striped acrylic talons) grasped and then dropped my “Amazing Grace” into the contraband bin… where it lay in the company of common Right Guard aerosols and Suave hairspray cans…a sacristy.

I then emitted a mild form of the “F” word… rather then the “big F word”… to avoid immediate arrest, and a trip to the terrorist holding area.  I assumed that it would be the same area where two of my friends were held.  One chum (busted by a DEA beagle) was attempting to smuggle in Bratwurst from her German mother’s kitchen. The other was just flat- out- loaded from drinking frozen vodkas with her Czechoslovakian pals prior to her tearful departure from Toronto. It can happen to anyone when there are a bunch of Czechs around… I know this. They start all that, “You can never refuse to drink with a Czech” combined with a Russian “Nostrovia” or two… and you end up in Portland, Maine instead of Portland, Oregon.  Anyway… I will never come to terms with the loss of my perfume and the unfairness of it all.

It was the Trip From Hell….throwing trash into an 8 ft. high dumpster at 4:30 AM on the day of my departure from Visalia, California. It was dark and cold… and I was alone. There had been so-o-o much packing and shipping to do. There had been people who avidly offered their help, and then became too involved in their own responsibilities to assist.  At 6AM., I herded the 4 cats into individual crates, and headed to San Francisco on Route 99 . The bumper to bumper traffic on 580 was a special treat with four- freaked- out -felines as traveling companions. The “Exorcist” had nothing on the guttural, demonic sounds  that eminated from the kitty crates.

I finally arrived at the airport…. parked… unloaded the four trauma victims, and took the parking shuttle. Sweat occluded my vision as I loaded 50+ pounds of cat onto the shuttle. The other passengers avoided my gaze… read their newspapers… checked their watches.No one offered to help… no surprise… self-absorption has evolved to an art form in Southern California. I piled the crates in the luggage section, and groped for an empty seat facing the cats. Eight terrified eyes… 4 blue and 4 green…  stared back at me.

I removed the crates from the van at the United Airlines site.  Again, people hurriedly passed me as I muled the heavy crates to the inside, check-in desk. By then, the cats were lulled by an impending state of shock and uttered only an infrequent, low-toned complaint. I presented the $450.00 worth of paperwork to the agent. The veterinarian’s signed documents would assure that my felines were not the carriers of some virulent, condominium-specific- California disease. Later, I would take my confining plane seat beside a Hispanic teenager who tenderly snuggled the (6 week old) Chihuahua that she had purchased in the Dominican Republic. She displayed the puppy’s  Dominican “health certificate” which had cost a mere $10.00 USD. Sometimes life just isn’t fair.

The United agent rapidly clicked her keyboard… looked puzzled… then… rapidly clicked again. She placed the health certificates in front of her… clicked some more… bit her lip… and continued to click.  She finally looked up from her keyboard, and stated  that the booking must be incorrect. Though an online representative for United had assured me that I had a confirmed booking for one human+4 felines from San Francisco to Portland, Me., there were suddenly “issues.”  The perplexed agent removed her glasses and  stated that “someone made a mistake. The flight from Boston to Portland does not take animals. That’s when I started to cry… just a little. I had been assured that the cats were on my flights by an apathetic “someone” who could have cared less about four cats and me.

United offered no perks… no first class… no free wine… just a few, “I’m so sorry(s) and a  re-booking to Boston. I paid the agent $1000.00 for the feline fares. In Boston, I would be required to rent a car, and drive another 2 hours on the freeway to Maine. Just when I thought that I had a grip on the situation, I was thrust into another 45 minutes of insanity.

The security people escorted me to a room where I  removed each traumatized cat from its individual crate. The cats were  searched for explosive devices… then their crates were searched for explosive devices. The only time-saver was the absence of cat-shoes. I began to look like a walking mohair sweater… clutching each hyperventilating cat by the nape of the neck… patting them, soothing them.  The staff mumbled some placatory words about water… food… etc.  But I could see that any bonding experiences with animals had not been a part of their formative years. When the “bomb squad” completed their “homeland safety” cat-specific protocols,  I was left with 7 minutes to make the flight.

I ran miles and miles to the departure gate. Since I had been delayed, and  arrived late, I was re-searched  by a  special searcher while United held the plane… and all the people on the plane. It seems that when the United agent changed my flight to a Boston arrival, I was flagged as just having purchased the ticket. So… alarms went off and… special security was called in for the “special” search. I was re-patted and re-scanned before I was allowed to board the plane. I wove my way past all the disgruntled passengers who were awaiting  take off.  As I walked up the aisle, I whispered audibly…”It wasn’t my fault” to the angry lot.

In Boston, I waited an agonizing 45 minutes for the cats to be unloaded. I busied myself with calling a bunch of 800-numbers, which connected me to a multitude of phone trees  as I attempted to reserve an overpriced rental car. Boston has no rental services within the airport which makes the last minute procurement of a rental car a special and costly treat.

The cats finally arrived… shoved into some remote corner near the baggage belt. I cried a little more before loading everyone onto the Avis shuttle. Having completed the rental paperwork at midnight, I drove from the Boston airport and traversed a labyrinth of detours out of city.  I was so wired that falling  asleep at the wheel was the least of my problems. The cats  mental state had deteriorated to full blown PTSD… not one could muster even the most timid of meows.

I arrived in Portland around 2 AM, and went directly to my son’s apartment. I could not endure another mile of driving to my brother’s house in the country. My son and I unloaded the cats, and put out cardboard litter boxes and cat food.  One of the former-feral cats immediately found an access opening in a bathroom wall, and refused to leave the solitude of the interior plumbing. The next day, I rented a “have a heart” trap, placed it outside the opening to the wall…and waited. Two days later, she was captured… and doing OK.

I returned the rental car, and my brother arrived to retrieve his new room mates… 4 wigged-out felines and a narcoleptic sister… lucky him. When we arrived at his house in the country, I saw a sky-full of stars, heard frogs peeping, and wild turkeys gobbling in his yard. Fish were jumping in his pond… and there was air to breath… so clean… not a sign or smell of the Central Valley’s neurotoxins anywhere. The Maine sky is blue… blue… blue, and the spruce trees smell like Christmas when I walk in the woods. When it rains, my car remains clean. The brooks are lined with tall, emerald ferns, and the wild “Lady’s Slippers”  bloom in the woods. I looked about me… at the beauty… and I knew that the smothering, toxic fog of the Central Valley could not smother me again. The sickening, smog-laden vapors would slowly rise from my heart.

Old Babe Letters

Hi….I miss you….I went home to Maine for Christmas. My Mom is 92…still a trip…reads 8 nonfiction books a week…and…does crosswords…the secret to longevity. We had a Christmas day dinner with my hermit brother…who came out of hermitage with the promise of free food. He rapidly returned to his nicotine-coated home where he refuses to turn on the water heater…difficult when he’s in an enclosed area with you. He lives on generic cigarettes, generic beer, and generic tomato soup with discount noodles. His companions are two huge Amazon parrots who watch soap operas on a B&W TV and scream. They also shout, “Where have you been? I work my ass off while you just sit on yours.”…this is a true story. Anyway…any delusions I entertained about moving back to Maine, were dispelled when I realized ( while chomping a festive Christmas-dinner ham sandwich… on a finger roll) that I was the only person at the table with all my own teeth. Alas…California looked pretty good when I returned.

My sister made it to Maine from Florida…after a miraculous and spontaneous recovery from a back injury. Nobody knew she was coming…because she wanted it to be a…”surprise.” This.. of course…limits the number of relatives who arrive at the airport to pick you up…duh.

I miss Merida s0-o-o much…and the house I lived in there. It seems to get more intense every year…the need to return to Mexico. I hope to buy a small house in Merida, and do something that provides me with food. The USA is not a permanent thing for me…it’s just that California nurses make a heap of cash…and…if you get out of Bakersfield…there are beautiful places to visit. I declined a job offer today…I’m in demand because nurse-management jobs suck, and nobody is dumb enough to take them.

Anyway…I’ve applied to Tulane Hospital for a position…and some jobs in San Francisco. I’d really like to return to New Orleans since it fits my style…and…yee-haw…did we do some living there…did we ever cook a meal? I am so finished with Bakersfield and the pollution…the worst in the nation. What do you say we hit someone up for a room ….jazz fest second weekend…if I’m not living there by then? I think other friends want to hit the fest. I’ll probably fly there for a live interview in a couple of weeks….eat food…hang out. I have a personal trainer now…quite the geriatric babe.

You’ve had the boyfriend for a time now. I’m such a bitch with men that I send them all to therapy. You are the kindest person in the world…so…if his kids don’t appreciate you…it is s-o-o their loss. I’ll never forget when you and Ian stepped off the elevator at Maine Med. to visit Brett and me….he held a rose you bought him…so kind. Ian has become a very swell man …funny…great to his friends…still a lobsterman. Brett’s living large in San Francisco…condo on Embarcadaro…babes…good job…good friends…trips to everywhere….tall, young, cracks me up…fine children.

Jayne

How Love is Like a Trapeze

I climbed the ladder to the trapeze platform…objects on the ground smaller then before as I balanced on an insufficient piece of solid stability…”why did I do this?” My legs began to tremble with the fear of falling…I did not expect to be this afraid…it surprised me…stunned me. The instructor placed the bar in my hand….it was heavy…pulling me toward the empty air…my other hand tightened on a guide wire…”When the catcher calls…”hup”…you will step off the bar”…said the man.

I watched the catcher drop to a knee hang position…I tried to focus on the white bandages that marked his hands…the place I would reach for…the safe place. His arms lowered…it was all too fast.

“hup”…I released the guide-wire….My left hand joined my right on the bar. I stepped into the air. My breath was short…I tried not to hold it…to breath. I swung toward the catcher…dropped to a knee hang on the bar…arched my back…spotted his wrists.. and reached with hope… through the still air.. to grasp his hands in mine…solid grasp…so frightened…now safe.

My knees were reluctant to release the bar’s weight…I swung above the net towards the catcher’s platform. The catcher held me. I did not have to let go…I could stay there…safe…wasn’t this enough?

We went forward on the first return…”hup”…I was lifted up…he released me…to the air…to the fear…to the freedom. I turned through the air as the first bar came to meet me…my grasp on solid steel…the arm of the instructor encircling my waist. I released the bar, and felt the platform under my feet. I stood solidly…straight and fearless… in the morning sunshine.

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