Walking, Wading and Resting...In Peace

I'm dirty.

Dirt, dust, clay, mud, soot, scum, sweat, debris, paint chips, smoke, splinters and surely some poisonous stuff and maybe some itsy-bitsy, tiny spiders too.
Covered.

And as soon as the last load of wash finishes, I'll hop into this old house's clawfoot for a cool, refreshing shower....
throw on some old soft cotton threads, kill all the lights and melt into the hammock out back...

simply enjoy knowing that sometimes walking through peace means running, lifting, heaving, chopping, scraping, climbing, squatting, mixing, digging, scraping and yes, eventually resting...if even just for a moment

everything comes full circle...
may evening peace becomes morning peace.

'Walking Through Peace' Hippie Art by Sister Singleton

Accidental Peace

Running errands the other day, I dashed into the bank and weaved myself through a brass and leather-corded alleyway, getting in line behind a shiny haired man.
He turned and looked at me. I smiled and he opened his mouth as if to say something, then turned away.
Moments later, the teller called for the next in line and before going any further, he took one step back and whispered over his shoulder to me.
'You smell soooo good.'
I don't wear perfume, but lotions or potions made of jojoba, olive & essential oils. They feel good & any aromas that kick are just a bonus. The scents seem to change with my mood.
Silly me. I basked in this strangers comment & its' method of delivery, for days...
discovering that sometimes what feels good for our skin...
feels good to the spirit...

(Outsider Hippie Art, Accidental Peace, by Sister Sing)

Brother-love, the Train Ride & Strangers

An empty checking account and a crisp one hundred dollar bill in my Levi's.
She drove me to the gravel lot in the woods by the tracks.
I wondered out loud 'Is this right? Is this where I am supposed to be?'
"I'm telling you....This IS the station."
'It's weird. No-one is here. There's not even a building...hahahaha, the lot isn't even paved. Hell, there's not even a light out here.'
"Welp, there's the moon.'
So we played eye-spy man-in-the-moon until dark-forty-five, when a barreling train suddenly came to a standstill in the middle of the woods.... for me.
It was dark and quiet and an usher escorted me to my dank little seat, where I remained for maybe five minutes.
I tugged my backpack over my shoulders and cruised the ill-lit cars until I came into the club car. It was nearly empty so I just scooched into a four-top that had chairs on 3 sides and a car-long bench on the fourth side. I lit a cigarette and pulled out my book, but found myself shaking one foot and staring into the smear of darkness out the windows.
I put the book up and went to the lonely tender of the club car where I got myself a can of Budweiser...two bucks plus a dollar tip. Three bucks would hopefully serve as a sedative for me.
Then, I slid out a frayed deck of cards....tttttthhhhhhhumpppppp.
Thirteen.
A solitaire game taught to me by my mother as a kid.
A pyramind of hearts and diamonds, batons and spades.
"One is the lonliest number that you'll ever do"
'Excuse me, do you mind if I play cards with you?'
'Um, sure!'
'Great! Next beer is on me!'
'Hey! That sound great!'
We began with a simple and silly game of Go Fish and two cold beers.
"So, tell me your story..."
"Two can be as bad as one It's the loneliest number since the number one"
Before long, another transient asked if we would mind if he joined in and my original partner was quick to respond 'No problem...it'll cost you one round of beer and you will have to tell us your story'
So now there were three of us, three cold beers, and we moved onto the game of BlackJack.
"Three is a magic number...The past, the present, the future...Faith, and hope, and charity ... The heart, the brain, the body... Ya it is, its a magic number"
Oh, but it didn't take long for our table to swell and with each additional soul came one round of cold beers and a fresh round of 'Tell me your story.'
After the club car quit serving, the attendant said he left one door open and he pointed to a small fridge with hooks and a swiveled padlock, unlocked. I smiled. 'Now, just don't get caught back here, okay?'
Behind that small door was six cold beers, a bowl of creamer, a single packet of coffee.
We made that last six pack last as long as we could and somebody asked for the story of me about the same time we broke into the java.
Yeah, I was drunk and silly by then. I was all mushy.
"I am loaded, I have the love of my life and I am still totally free..."
"What do you do?"
"I live. I laugh, I learn and I love..."
"Wait a minute...your'e loaded? What do you do for money? Does your old man have money?"
"Hahaha, no....I'm loaded, as in I am drunk but I have discovered I love you guys, all of you... so different, so special, so gifted in your own ways, and right here, right now you are the love of my life. I'm free to say that, to feel that way, right?"
"Yeah" "So True" "Wow, I feel the same way" "Damn, you got a point"




At about a quarter to five in the morning, the train came to a standstill at my destination... I hugged the fireman from NY and the cop from Tampa, the comedian from Atlanta, the accountant from Boca and the transvestite from Miami...and well, anyone else who wanted to hug.
My brother stood waiting in well-lit landing.
I greeted him with a big ole hug and he laughed, as the guys back on the train were all hollering out to me...
"What's that all about?"
"Hmmm...I think its all about the love."
hic-cup
'Love?!'
"Yeah, well, strangers and the love"
"Are you drunk?!"
hic-cup
"Yup"
It took us about thirty minutes to get back to his place and he told me how he would blaze on to work and I could sleep all day, but he would be home by four.
He pulled his truck into a space facing the tennis courts. At the courts, I saw two guys playing tennis in the rising sun.
Getting out of the truck, I raised my arm and waved "Good Morning Strangers!"
"Good Morning" echoed right back to me.
Brother-love went into work & I brewed more coffee, breaking out my Crayola markers.

At about ten am, there was a knock at the door.
It was the two strangers playing tennis at daybreak...
They were headed to the shoals at the river...
They are only strangers until you get to know them...

Five days of planned vacation with my brother turned into five and a half weeks with brother-love and an ever-expansive circle of friends, strangers and loves...

Flowers, Books and Covers

Judging books by the cover.

Long, skinny hair & a waif-like body
A reserved demeanor with liberal smiles
make-up? probably not.
hand-me-down levis' and a faded peasant top
home-made hippie beads & a long leather chain
wooden beads and open toes
slowly sipping on an ice cold beer.

Clink! Tink! Clash!

Lips painted the same color as her nails.
red.
face freshly powdered
hair short & well groomed
eyes bright with a reserved smile
gold on gold & definitely no leather
pressed shorts & closed toes
fingers from both hands wrapped around a wine glass

...

'So, what do you want to do when you grow up?'
A quick flip of the hair and a pixies wink over her shoulder
'Sellllllll flowers?' Sarcasm, the nectar of her words

The corners of my lips curled up into a smile.
I was an adult, at the time in my thirties.
And, I'd been down this road before.

'No, but funny you should say that....'

Silly woman...
I guess she didn't know not to ask questions that you don't want answers to & that a true hippie would simply give you a flower...

(Hippie art, of course, by Sister Singleton;)

Strangers on the Black Asphalt

Sometimes standing on the black asphalt and sometimes sitting, bent at the knees where he rested his elbows, he held onto his cardboard sign.
Sometimes I would see him walking up the overgrown hill behind the gas station using his makeshift sign as an umbrella in the rain.

Oliver once found one of his old discarded signs and brought it home to frame.

'Veteran. Homeless. Need Heart Surgery. Will Work Fore Money.'

Oliver said that the extra 'E' in 'Fore' , the water-logged cardboard dried by the sun & the roughly torn edges was an artistic reflection of our American culture.

One day the Sheriff came knocking on the door. He wanted to know when we had last seen the old man with the sign. It had been an unusual cold & snowy spell, so it had been a few days.
Shortly thereafter the maintenance man told me that he had found the homeless man in the electrical shed & he had apparently died of a heart attack.

Nowadays, there is a man who frequents my exit ramp with his dog & his cardboard sign. Several months ago, I took him a collar and a leash. More recently, I passed a doggies sweater and collapsible canvas dog food bowl to him. I could have taken him many more dog supplies, but instead I have a cardboard box in my trunk, within which I keep a forty pound bag of food and a scoop.

I have seen him...
crawl the hill and into the woods behind the gas station.
I could give him a lot more.
But to give him more than he can carry would be to give him a burden.
Sometimes the weight of one's own shoulder's is heavy enough...

Rockstar, Flossie & Pumpkin Butt

'Excuse me, Flossie!'
'Hey. Rapunzel'
'Alright, Twiggy'
'What else Skinny?'
and more traditionally...
'Thank you Dear'
'Sure, Darling'
'No problem Love'
'Here you go, Honey'
'Okay, Sweetheart.'
'Thanks, Angel'

Terms of endearment bestowed upon me from strangers.
Doesn't matter, baby-love.
I'll answer to anything.

I guess in a more traditional than my faded Levis' who-could-be-bothered with curling the hair much less the eye lashes world, 'Maam' would be the appropriate & respectful term of endearment for a stranger to use. Sure enough SweetPea, 'Maam' doesn't really seem appropriate over here... but I'll answer to it too.

A mother silently pushed her terrible two-something toddler through the store, screaming every bit of the way. Each aisle seemed to be sheer torture for the young boy. Momma pushed on. After about 40 minutes of pretended peace, Momma pushed her buggy to the counter to check out with screaming child strapped in.

'Hey Pumpkin! Why are you crying? You have the coolest red truck on your shirt! You gotta like that!'

A sniffle, then back to the tearless screams and an eye-cut from Momma...'Well, for one thing! He don't like being called pumpkin!'

Smiling back at scrowling Momma...'Hahaha, welllllllll...... let him live to be my age and he'll realize there are a lot worse things to be called.'

A term of endearment, whether we personally like it or not, is still a term of endearment....right, rockstar?

On the Curb of the Publix Shopping Lot...

I sat with my weeks worth of groceries, grateful for once that I had no butter, sour cream, milk or ice cream. The sun was cooking down on me, perhaps amplified by the black tar-top lot, and I knew that all of those things would perish... I could have sat in my car to contemplate what to do, but it too was black and as hot as the dickens.
So I just sat on the curb with my bag of potatoes, box of pasta & can of mushrooms...
smoking, contemplating, waiting...
For what, I did not know.
The hood was up on my car, as if it were a flag waving some friendly tow truck safely over. But I knew that would never happen. Roadside protection had already told me that I had used the maximal allowance for a twelve month period.
Nope. No more tows for almost 3 more months.
So, I just sat there...
smoking, contemplating & waiting....
I watched people come and go...
Green aprons pushing squeaky wheels over the black top and to the gold Volvo's, sleek white Mercedes, big F-150's, the spotless Cadillac's and the little black BMW's.
Green aprons loading up bags of fresh fruits and vegetables and huge slabs of meat and bag load after bag load of wonderful, healthy food.
Green aprons plopping twelve packs of Heinekin and bottles of champagne into trunks.
Green aprons dropping preservative-rich frozen insta-meals and gossip magazines and Pantene into tiny little trunks.
Green aprons sweating and never accepting a tip & never noticing me noticing them.
With my rump on the curb and my flip-flopped feet on the black top, I looked over my shoulder...
Grass. Beautiful, green grass. Thick. Healthy. Cool.
I stretched my legs out before me & allowed myself to just lay back, become one with soft cool earth.
Staring into the sky, my mind bounced & ricocheted around my own little world.
Chinga- Ching - Ching.
The rythym of the sound drawing closer ...
Chinga - Ching - Ching
Chinga - Ching - Ching
Long dirty blonde hair in dread locks.
Chains from front pockets of baggy, faded & holey blue jeans to the back pocket.
Hemp in the form of a braided hat and a well-worn necklace.
'A song for my fair lady.'
'I haven't any money for you.'
'No worries, my lady.'

Remembering another moment of enjoying the 'eternal now'....
"Chinga-Ching-Ching" to the profound strangers in our lives that make a difference and may never even know it...