Retailers Pixie

If there is such a thing as reincarnation, I'd like to drop my name in the box for Pixies.
Pixie...a fairylike or elfin creature, especially mischievous. A playful sprite.
Toothfairies, flowerfairies & the sandman all have a good life... but perhaps, just a little too good for me.

All this peace & love needs a little spit & fire.

I'd build my wings from sticks & twigs. I hold them together with sap & spit. I'd proudly flaunt about completely topless & I would never, ever wear shoes. I'd grow my hair long & I wouldn't really brush it. I'd be a professional. Much like the toothfairie, I would have a specialty...an area that I catered to.

Living my life as a Pixie, I would traipse in & out of people's homes, cars & places of employment...

I wouldn't visit everyone, of course, as everyone is not well-deserved of a fine, morally upstanding, professional, long-haired, barefooted, topless Pixie-on-a-mission. I would visit all the people who had once visited me & I would leave a trail, just as they had done.

I would bop in on the I-Can't-Read-Nor-Use-A-Measuring-Tape-But-Can-Tell-If-Its-The-
Right-Size-By-Looking-At-It persons' house & I would unravel every spool of thread, every bundle of rope & every dispenser of tape... just to see if I too, could measure with my eyes & mind.

I would pilfer through cupboards, stacking plates upon bowls, placing cups in pots & I'd put the lids to said pots on the mantle to the fireplace.
I would go into linen closets, remove pillow cases from their matching sheet sets & place them in the garage with the lawn equipment.
I would remove the lid from the gas tank on the lawn mower & place it in the socks & underwear drawer.
I would take one sock & do some spot cleaning in the bathroom with it.
I would remove half the screws from the bathroom fixtures & move the toothbrush holder to the backdoor, placing it right on the ground by Fido's bowl.
I would fill Fido's bowl with crystal beads, stolen from a garland which I found & disassembled.
I would take the peppermill & seasalt grinder & I would grind salt & pepper onto the coffee table & the maybe I'd dabble my initials in it.
I would take all books off of the coffee table & place them on the floor.
I would open umbrellas & put them in the center of the room, along with any mail I might find.
I'd pull one slice of cheese, one egg, one link of sausage out of their packets & place them on the floor right in front of the refrigerator.
I would unscrew pump lotions & squirt a little bit on the counter, then I would smear my fingers through it. A little dab will do.
I would take pictures off of the wall & place them on the furniture, hoping not to scratch any wood.
If I had a Pixie-child, I would let her chew on candles or cashmere sweaters, as she saw fit.
Every now & again, I would nibble on some food...taking, say one bite, out of a loaf of fresh-baked bread or a corner off of a belgium candy bar...yum!yum!
I would take apart Parker ink pens to see if the ink looked different & then I would scribble on pretty victorian stationary sets to see if they write differently.
I'd take car keys off of the rings & re-organize alphabetical files according to my mood.
I'd open glove compartments & trunks & I'd leave them open, amybe even pulling spare tires & jacks out just to look at them.

Oh, I would be such a good little Pixie...
All in good fun, no harm meant & no money spent.
Much like the shoppers at Christmastime.

I met a man around the Fourth of July.
I called him Freedom.
He called me a Beautiful Soul.
He was young, well-employed, tall, and handsome with dark hair & light eyes.
We never did anything but talk.
I told him about my upcoming divorce.
He told me about his recent one.
He told me that he had screwed up with his ex-wife by fooling around on her.
He said he did it to stroke his ego.
He told me that if my husband said he loved me (he did)...
that if my husband said he would change his lying & cheating ways (he did)...
that perhaps, I should give him a second chance. (I did)

On the day of my divorce, Freedom called.
He wanted to see me & I said 'no.'

'Freedoms just another word for nothing left to lose'

but you can not lose what you never had.

No, but here's what I do remember...

Momma moved at lightning speed... strapping Chanty Boy in the back & laying Curt sound asleep, thumb in his mouth, on his side on the vinyl next to him.
I was small, real small ... but I was awake.
'Get in' she said, holding the front passenger door open. The late 1960's and a four door sedan... mother & toddler chit-chatting it up on a impromptu roadtrip. Before I knew it, we were there.

At Nana's... a 'lovely' place to be, where clovers grew like monkey grass & flowers had petals of velvet, garages had no doors & inside doors slid in and out of the wall, where rotary dial phones were in the kitchen & colored the same as the appliances...a a dark seafoam teal, where Bob Barker was always on the tv, murals were painted on the walls & Nana's loving spirit filled us all.

'Go outside & water the flowers. I have to talk to your Nana.'
Meandering back in through the door that we never used moments later...

'Honey, you can't come back home to your mother & father. You have to go back home...to the one you made with your husband & your children.'

I indian-footed back out of ear shot. I had never heard Nana's voice without a light-hearted ring in it before. Instinctively I knew not only that her words were not for my ears, but also that my ears didn't want them.

Before it got to be dark, Momma gathered us up.
'Momma, aren't we staying the night? We always get to spend the night.'
'Not tonight baby...we're going back home.'

And she put me in the backseat with Curt & Chantyboy.

Marbeline

02-2001 ~ 12-2007~Marbeline~

Momma's rotten girl

Spoon-moon blues
She knows when she wants out...

Just a few weeks old she came charging out from behind the counter. I dropped to my knees.
About three feet in front of me, she formed herself into a bowling ball, rolling her brindle & white-self all the way up my knees and chest until she was nestled into the nape of my neck, wet nose snorting like a pig in her sty.
'Oh my goodness...who's puppy is this?! She's like a little shooter marble!'
'She's boarding here from pitbull rescue...wontcha take her home?'
'Ha! She's so cute, little miss marbeline, but I don't think so. My house is an over-grown dog-house already. I am sorry'
'Oh, no problem. We just placed an internet ad last night & have already had 16 responses. She's so cute, we won't have a hard time placing her. We gotta get spaded first & we can't do that until she's 10 weeks, so we'll get to enjoy her for a while yet.'
Six weeks later...
'Paige, she's still here. Everyone wants her, but no one qualifies. You coined her name. She's meant to be with you.'
And...that's the story of how Marbeline came to be with me.