How Heavy Metal Saved America

The children were fighting...well, actually, they would have been. I call them children because they were younger, but they were teens: testosterone-laden young men, unsure and unsettled. Under heat and pressure, such a concoction becomes volatile. Can a man be contained and not explode? Such expectations as these are stranger than fiction. Ample space is required to move and to breathe.

So the "boys" live in a town and they consume as they have all their lives. Eat food. Drink water. Hunger for knowledge, thirst for life. Suddenly, their bodies are changing. Their minds are changing, they are growing up and out of their skin. Word on the street is there are places to go, people to meet--chics--but for now they are temporarily detained. Angrily, maybe, one strikes a blow. Maybe two. A punch thrown here; there. Punches flying everywhere!...And then, suddenly--stopped!

This is maddening, they say. What a waste. This is hurting my hand, and your face isn't looking too good either. Your face actually sucks, and hey, I'm sorry about that, buddy. Here, borrow my guitar. No, better yet, keep it. I have two. Instead of punch-face, the man-boys decide to collect themselves a band. One guy doesn't have much talent for instrument, so he's the front man with a microphone, and they all decide to play together. Instruments are electrified. Bodies marry instrument, marry music and wage war on something other than faces and guts and groins. Angst travels as vibration and waves, pounding hearts not heads and grounding the source of anger into a pool of electricity at the souls of man-boy feet.

Harvest Moon

"Remember who you wanted to be." (Bumper sticker in Cedar today.)

Remember and go fearlessly. Remember. Remember and shiver. But, remember. Remember and smile and hearing a Stevie Wonder song play in your ear and tap your toe. Remember. Remember and laugh at how far you have come, how off the mark the dart, and laugh and laugh some more.

Here is my compass. Here is my map. What direction did I want to go, again? Along the way, maybe the compass, oriented for Mars, you landed and lacking gravity, your feet would not stick to earth and you levitated far above--you were no longer grounded. Hovering there, you looked around and checked the compass at it had sorta gone bonkers: needle spinning, complete mess. So there you are with your map and your compass and your feet lacking gravity boots and you have no direction. Mars is a strange place when you have no bearings, you have no direction.

Next step: Orientating self. Acclimate. Establish location. Adapt.

The Day Before Tomorrow.

Sleep has been an illusive friend the past few days. My body and mind have been restless. I churn and turn and tumble over and over in my bed--night visions dancing, minus the sugar plums.

When and how do we open? Open to the mystery? Suddenly religious, we move in this direction of palms wide-open and the world open to us, ready to be embraced. Can we welcome this new world with an old mind? Thinking that, in fact, this cannot be so. The mind must change and open and we must venture forth from this new place: renewed, revived, reborn.

Of course, all this comes to mind for a myriad of reasons. The hundred plus birthday; the autumn, the waning hours of daylight. Worlds are coming together, joining; hearts are converging and minds are melding, and meanwhile, we all have to vote for a president and pretend to save the world by looking out the window. "Quick, the hole! Don't just sit there, fill it with something!" I wonder what the whales are saying about how we operate around here?

Yurt Love

On this trip to Wisconsin, I was able to share my friends Rebecca and Greg with Peggy. Northland Greg shared his yurt and strawbale constructed house, lending them as temporary abode, liberating us from the cooling autumn temps of the north woods.

Peg would have done fine in the tent, or in the van or under the tree. Cherie would have slept in a tree limb next to him, but she does enjoy the sensation of mattress under her skinny bones. Plus, she becomes uber cranky if she doesn't get her beauty sleep. Sleep deprived, she lacks radiance.

Painter's Mind: Old Dogs, New Tricks...Who Said it Couldn't Be Done?

Wisconsin turned everything upside down. Here Painter gives advisory lessons on Enjoying Life 101, or How to Empty a Head of Useless Thoughts. I'm sure if it were not for his lacking opposed thumbs, he would be all over the manual and would be happy to offer of good, sound advice to anyone willing to listen.

...And though he endured momentary glimpses of imminent abandonment, he remained as poised as a meditating monk with a fly crawling on his face. Unflappable.

Nearly November

Days pass
and still I dream
at night of
nothing, but
creatively caged in
an ordinary existence,
bleached free of color,
purpose removed.

Waking wearily,
I should have
read the label:
Wash warm,
gently agitate
do not bleach
fluff to dry
Iron as needed.

How Old is Old?

Manic about the possibility of being considered--"middle-aged"--when a 102 year old sighs and breathes her night's journey a simple floor below. Suddenly, the rumination seems futile. What point is it to worry that you will be old? That you will grow old and die and have to have someone else cut your meat. Frankly, your meat has been cut before; your eggs scrambled soft for your baby tender teeth, so there is really no point in struggling or allowing the thought to plague you, lest you sprout one gray hair. Cut your own meat while you still can! Gnaw the potatoes, bite by bite by bite, and savor the flavors that come bursting into your palate while you are still ALIVE!

Ewa is 102 this week. Last year I greeted her at breakfast on her 101st and said, "Ewa! Your a 101!" She replied, "Cherie, I just remember really wanting to be 16," as if the last 86 years have been more or less a gift that wasn't requested, and quite possibly a burden.