A Very Cool Spring Day

Rainy Days and the Mundane

Cracking thunder moved across the five am sky
waking me up early today. The window amplified

its peal. Left open after letting my son hang out to
smoke. The neighbor spoke out to him while she too

stood on our patio inhaling tobacco and cool
air before bedtime. And we laughed as he

pretended to jump, ending it all; warned
he would only break his legs, starting at his feet

maybe all the way up in such a way he
would be stuck with Mom Nightingale. A nurse

who might not be so kind to a veteran of
risk taking- a kid who was impatient in memory;

hastily climbing up chairs and tables and ladders, stepping
over slick newspapers to reach the counter, for

a cereal bowl, because hunger slowly streamed in
a childhood window that morning with bird songs.


(We spent one of his age three days in the ER over that broken collar bone...now he is into rock climbing)

I am not sure what we are looking up at in the photo, maybe adverts, in hubs random snap shot of a subway ride while in NYC, but I cut off either side's rider to protect the innocent. Yep, he and I are dangerous suburb mice trying to blend in with fast pace city mice. Which makes me realize why I love Farm Lady's (Over Good Ground) post so much...takes me to a place where I long to be.

I like the city and my surroundings here in Princeton, but I want to go back to rural life of my youth. Hear that son? It's what he (we all do) misses about St. Louis. One minute your in the city mouse mood and next it is a country mouse's life.

This all circles back around to my beautiful view out the bedroom (back patio as well) window. I'm not crazy about the light which comes in when the shades are left up, but the rain, thunder and steady view of lush ever greens takes me back...and inspires.

And we say 'la vie' to National Poetry Month...

Baby girl don't leave me all alone...

Irish Gumbo remembering, memorializing his brother yesterday in thought, heart longing dredged up my own longing before I went to sleep. If you can call it that...at times...

Children as they often do have their own personalities the minute they hit this oxygenated world. One is as fragile as life itself, or maybe even in the variance of the color pink itself, but needing constant care and hugs. The other leaps over the sofa before he could crawl, clinging to my ankle like I was a kooky bed hair scientist who's only lab assistant was behind him with an ever changing hump in his back. He would always be there looking up to me as if his life depended on it.

So, in an instant out of time they wanted their own music playing on the radio. Never a dull moment in every move we made each day. No wonder I was so thin back in the eighties and nineties. I had to make a plan or I would just freakin' go nuts. A wise mother always knows to make up the rules as you go along, and always remember what you tell them. If they question you, tell the truth, but in a keen 'when you get older you can do it your own way' answer... Kids always think its going on in every one else's house right?

I designated Sunday my radio day. Monday and Wednesday was Anelisa's day. Tuesday and Thursday was Aaron's radio day; Friday again was my day, and Saturday was the radio's day. Meaning if I turned it on, we counted to three and I hit a button. What it landed on according to the tuner, was what we listened to. A well rounded classical, pop, rock and roll, latin, pop, rock and roll, NPR kind of mix-up. I would never make a great DJ, but hey I gave my kids a good sense of all kinds of music.

Anelisa's day was hell. Yep, Aaron and I hated pop, well, we tolerated it until a song came on we could get into. Dig into, in a body moving kind of way. See he had rhythm, but she did not. Latin music came on, he and I would begin to move around the room or in the car; shaking it like a low rider on crack.

My last memory of 'musica' in the car was when Aunt Mary, my little sister was in the back seat with Anelisa. Aaron and I in the front. God knows Mary was an instigator of bad behavior like aunts can be! Yep, it was Aunt Mary's 'musica' in the car day. HUH? WTF! So, the Marc Anthony CD came out of no where and the car began to rock...yeah, like a low riding crack cocaine be bop hoppin john chicken fryin' who the heck knows...and it was just not one song; it was this song...over and over and over and over and over...get ready...hit play...violins take it! Wait I have speakers? Louder? Wait!!! the windows are down, and we have not left the driveway yet...

Memory take me over, move my body...let me feel again..."don't leave me all alone out here...tell me baby girl...cause I need to know..............my ever thought is of this being true....girl you gotta let me know which way to go.......it's getting harder not to think of you.........."



Tell me baby girl cause I need to know...

March 1st is her 24th birthday...I can only imagine what she would listen to these days, or wear? Yikes...or who she would bring home...