A String Bikini & Words of Wisdom

Puberty threw me into an inner-culture shock.
Meet me at the end of the seventies.
You'll see me wearing a burgundy-piped pink terry cloth onesie romper...the kind where the piping can be tied in a bow over your breast for the soft shoulders look or it can be tied in a vee over your chest & around your neck. If not alone, I tied it up around my neck, suddenly aware and afraid that one simple tug could strip me of all of my coverage, leaving me wide open for exposure. So much faith placed on that one little bow.
You'll see me walking the beach all alone, with barefoot soles hardened by the hot sand and busted up oyster shells, feeling nothing, hoping no-one will notice me & wishing someone could roll me up, pop me in a bottle, put a cork in it & throw me out to sea. Hoping I'd wash up on the shores of where I was meant to be.
My legs were long and getting longer, my waist was small and getting smaller, my breast were swelling to remind me of the eminence of growing up & forcing me to change my everyday life.
Developing breasts meant I could no longer play football with the neighborhood boys like I always had before...like them...shirtless. It meant I could no longer go to the hose to swill some rubbery water, hoping it would quench my thirst, discovering it wouldn't & having it turn into an afternoon of playing in the water in my underwear. It meant that taking the bandana off of my head and tying it around my chest no longer counted as 'getting dressed.'
Now I was not raised by nudists, nor am I a nudist.
It's not about nudity, it is about comfort.
These days, I come home & peel out of my works duds & slip into something more comfy...something loose around the waist, light & soft & definitely not a bra. When I was a kid, getting comfy simply meant taking off my top & as the days got longer & hotter, taking off my gouchos, dittos or levi's.
I got my first bra, a training bra, for Christmas in fifth grade. I didn't know what it was or what it was for and when I found out, surrounded by friends and family I was bewilderd as to why I had rec'd it. I thought there had been a mistake. I thought it was probably a mis-tagged gift for one of my older sisters. And then I was mad, so mad that I was nearly in tears. I barked out at the crowd of strangers that I thought knew me so well....This is ridiculous! I don't even wear a shirt! Why would I wear a bra?
My sister told me that if I didn't wear a bra that my breast would grow forever. Her friend told me I could suffocate in my sleep if I didn't wear it. Mom told me I wasn't allowed to play football or in the hose with the boys anymore unless I wore it.
Ugh....
So I walked the beach alone in my onesie. My compromise, my stepping stone...
until Nana took me shopping for a swimsuit. A new swimsuit, not a pass-me-down. One just for me. One to accent my growing body. One to remind me that I am a girl. One that fit me.
In the bright lights of the mall store, in the juniors department, with my grandmother, I felt raw & revealed, embarassed & excited. I pulled a number of suits off the rack. Ones I thought my grandmother may approve of. I showed them to her & she quietly nodded. On my way to the dressing room and out from under her eye, I pulled a one peice Ocean Pacific french cut into my wad of suits. French-cut was new & risque for the era.
As I pulled on the first suit, Nana's feet appeared outside my dressing room door & she rambled encouragement for me to come out & model. I didn't, but I opened the door for her to peek in. She wasn't impressed. I closed the door & tried again with another modest suit. And then another & then another. Nana wasn't impressed & began to wander off in search of something better.
But the OP swimsuit was still in there with me.
A one piece, but very low in the back, high on the sides and cut & gathered in the middle. Lay it out & it almost looked like a figure 8. I quickly tried it on. I loved it. The french-cut curves & cuts of the suit made my ropeswing (with knots tied in the middle) legs look long & sleek, the criss-cross strap, low-cut back made my shoulders seem broader. The material gathered around my buds, made them appear more mature & the material tampered in towards the belly, revealing part of my waist & belly. I looked in the mirror & I saw a girl. A fresh, clean girl. I loved it! I stood in dressing room staring, twisting & turning, looking at myself in this one-peice OP made with less material than most two-peices in shock and awe.
Nana's feet appeared again outside the door. She had another swimsuit for me to try on. I told her that I was wearing one that I liked, hinting it was a little skimpy. She wanted to see.
When I finially get up the nerve to open the door for her, she has wandered several yards away & was looking at other swimsuits. I called to her. I don't think she even turned around, but she said 'You've never been timid, now come on out here & show that suit.' I came out and took a few steps as she walked towards me. She is smiling, almost laughing & says that this suit was an improvement on the others. Suddenly, she grabbed my right arm, right above the elbow & held tightly, pulling my arm down the way only grandmothers can do. Her eyes suddenly a red-hot fire in their blue frosting and she whispered with intensity in a deep hushed voice to me. My eyes locked with hers & I listened intently to what she said.
'Let me tell you one thing child, when you're young you have resources but you don't have the balls to use them. When you get older, you have the balls to do anything but you don't have the resources.... now, try THIS on.'
In her hands she held a black two peice that had about sixty feet of string. String that connected two small patches to each other, criss-crossing across your back or belling then connecting to a third flap of material. I think I had seen her swimsuit before. I think it was in a Fredericks of Hollywood catalog I saw while babysitting. I couldn't help but bust out laughing. Here I had been afraid of my grandmothers reaction to a skimpy one peice & she was bringing me something 3x skimpier.
I got the OP swimsuit & the only reason my Mother even let me wear it was because her Mother had bought it. I wore it for three years until I wore it out. I've never found a swimsuit like it since. I've never had a swimsuit that gave me that feeling again.
The swimsuit is but a classic memory, but those words...I wear them forever. My grandmother sewed them into the fibers of who I am when she pulled on my arm & locked those ice blue eyes with me.

Secret Messages

He FEELS THE MAGIC & he runs RINGS around the ROADTRIP, but he didn't follow the YELLOW BUTTERFLY.
It's him, not Paul Newman, but it's him.He's been here & he is often Parading around.
He comes in peace & he comes with fear & he should, for he is no fool, nor is he a saint....yet, he's both.
He better tread lightly & cover his trail.
He better guard this like a young lady guards her virginity.
LEFT-OVERS are only good if they haven't be spoiled, please don't let the flies in...
Peace & Love...life is for Living, Loving & Learning.
My apologies to any random passers-by, curiosity seekers, SAS enthusiasts, strangers and/or people who beleive they know me well for this apparently insane, whacked out, encrypted psycho-babble. It only makes sense to say what you mean and mean what you say. The three of us, and we know who we are, mean no harm...please don't let the flies, brandishing their misconceptions & profaninities, in. PLEASE.

Love Letters VS Love Notes

Some People Write Love Letters & Some Write Love Notes...

Enrico Carusso....I believe that is the name of an old Spanish Opera Singer. My Mom had very old clay records she would play on the victrola of his. When I say that name, I kind of roll on the R's & I like the way it sounds. I first said that name in 3rd grade.
3rd grade, 1975, saw a move & change of schools, which can always be good or bad. In My World, this move could have been better. I didn't like the wide paved roads as much as the small brick road we had lived on. The neighborhood didn't have all the mature fruit trees & old Oak trees that I was used too. The school was bigger & there weren't as many kids in the neighborhood to play with. Actually, there was probably more kids...but these guys played inside & I rarely saw them.
I met a boy in class & he befriended me. He would walk me to the corner of my street & then go back to go home himself. At the corner, often eating candy or popsicles from the ice cream man, we'd talk. I told him about my old neighborhood, the brick roads, the floating docks & canoes, the orange trees & banana trees and of course, The Big Old Oak Tree. Before moving here, I thought every neighborhood had a Big Old Tree. He told me about His World. How his Momma didn't speak good English & his grandmother lived with them & his father worked hard & about who he liked & didn't like at school. I never invited him to my house...we would meet each other at the corner & say good bye at the corner.
Except one day he just stayed at the corner and I didn't realize it as I walked on. I was about 1/2 way to the house & he came running up behind me. When he caught up with me, he handed me a note & said 'The Big Old Oak Tree...even though I've never seen it.' I took the note, it was tightly folded up into a football & asked what he was talking about. He said, 'Read that when you get home & you'll understand,' and then he turned and ran! I held the note, fumbling it between my fingers, as I watched him dash away. I finally turned and walked a few steps before tucking it into my pocket.

Arriving home, I promptly forgot about the note. It wasn't until bedtime, when I was hashing over the days events in my head, that I remembered the note. My sister & I shared the room next to my parents & the whole house was asleep. I quietly got up & retrieved the note from my crumpled up pants. I turned on the light to my sisters vanity mirror. Hunched in towards the light, I read my note. This is what it said...
"My Dearest & Most Beautiful Paiger~
I would like to kiss you as many times as there are leaves on the tree. I Love You. ~ Enrico Caruso"
Short, thoughtful, passionate, romantic, to the point & filled with lustful desire, this was a true love note...

Kim's Hand-Me-Down Levi's

Kim's Hand-Me-Down Levi's

A poem written by me in 1993 based upon a true story ~peace & love, please~

Kim's hand-me-down Levi's
Worn by all of us
Handed down three times
white, worn and tattered
three generations old
but thats never mattered

Kim's Hand-me-down Levi's
handed on down in the order we were born
they are a little bit older
and a little more worn
always easily found
but not easily torn

Kim's hand-me-down Levis'
worn by Kim, Curt & me
And sometimes I can see
Kims' hand-me-down Levis
Kind of in me.

*2006, may the spirit of these Levi's live within all of us. My Dear Sweet Kim has joined the battle of a lifetime, one against cancer. May she be as strong, as durable, as consistant & resistant, as the fibers of those famous hand-me-down Levi's. White, worn & tattered...none of that matters.

Lord of my own Domain

The thunder roars when my stomache growls & other beliefs

As a little girl, I was introduced and re-introduced to God in a variety of manners. By the time I was about 4, I started making certain conclusions about this whole God thing.
As elusive as he was to me, I trusted my Mom when she told me that he made all life: flowers and people, fish and ants, and all in between. He made the waters and the sun and he could make it rain, even flood, when he wanted. We were part of HIS world. Us and the ants.

One afternoon, as I was writing with a stick on the sidewalk, I found myself adsorbed by the activities of the ants scurrying around in such an organized fashion. It was as if they didn't know that I existed. Me and My World didn't seem to matter the least to these ants.

I took my stick and dragged it around their line. Knocked off course, they were quick to recover and get back in line. Suddenly thunder ripped through the skies, as often is the case in central Florida, but I was still absorbed by these ants. The thunder didn't bother them either...none of them seemed to stop, even for a nano second, to look to the sky. Soon big ole splats of rain were dropping fast & hard. I scurried myself inside, very much like an ant running for the hills.
On the sofa, with the power out from the afternoon storm, I continued my daydreaming. As the rain slapped the windows and ran down the panes in sheets, I couldn't help but thinking that this storm was surely causing a flood to the ants & their world.
My stomache growled, I needed to get something to eat...but was feeling too lazy. Then the thunder clapped, quickly followed by another growl of my belly. As I was venturing into the kitchen, I thought how much my stomache growl sounded like the thunder. As I waited for Mom to make a peanut butter sandwich, my stomache let out another rumble, followed immediately by a rumble in the sky.
I took a sip of my water and it hit me. We are all Lords of our domains! When our stomache growls, it's thunder to the world inside. When you drink, it's rain.

We are smaller than an ant in Gods body. And in our body we have worlds. When we are sick, those worlds experience floods and tornados, hurricanes and mudslides and so on. When we are feeling good they get appropriate weather conditions for good healthy soil & a good healthy life. They'd get a better life and a better world if we all took better care of ourselves.
Infinitey. A word I did not knwo, but a concept I was learning. I could feel so small looking at the stars and so big looking at the ants. They both seem so oblivious to me & My World. Infinety.

I could see all of us...me, the stars, the ants & our world being astronomincally large & at the same time small enough to fit in an ants belly. Depends on the perspective. I could, we all could, have an entire system of worlds within us. God is infinite and I am within him & he within me. And in some worlds, the thunder roars when my stomache growls.
This was my first individual divine principle, one which was created via daydreams, reality & religious notions handed down. Please share with me any quirky notions that you may have come up with as a child.

Climbing Trees & Skipping School

Iv'e been climbing into and up on trees since I can remember. Perhaps that is because the neighborhood I lived in the longest as a kid had a Big Old Oak Tree that we all climbed in.
We lived on a brick road, lakeside, in Central Florida. Park-like setting. The little roads in our area had islands in them. The island in front of our house had a water fountain and a sitting area. The one down from our house had The Big Old Oak Tree.
The branches were so long and thick that we would dangle over the rare passing car. We'd try to touch the teen-agers riding by on bikes with our toes as we sat on it's expansive branches. We sometimes would climb out on a branch and jump down on the opposite side of the road. Often we would sit in the web of its roots and talk about our worlds. We would race our bikes over the ripples the extended roots caused in the brick road. We grew up tangled in with the roots and branches, constantly reaching out.
I found myself in this tree, all alone for hours, on my first day of school at Jack & Jill Pre-K. My middle sister, I'll call her Kimbies, was in 6th grade and attended the 'big kid school' next door & she was given the task of walking me to school on my first day! I was slightly nervous & quite skeptical. Kimbies walked me to the gated entrance. She pointed to an adult woman (presumably a teacher) and told me to go ask her what I should do...where I should go. I did.
This woman told me to go play in the playground. I did.
I got on the monkey bars and began to swing my way across. About half way down the bars, I was met with a tangle-haired classmate with her feet swinging wildly towards my gut. I had never been in day care, but at the park, we always allowed passing on the monkey bars. I swang to the left and right and even backwards trying to escape her kicks and get around her. Her eyes were as wild as her hair & neither compared in wildness to those damned kicking feet. She snarled her thin little lips up at me and said "scared blondie?"
Hmmm...the thoughts were there, although the vocabulary was not...
I thought 'fuck this shit' and I just let go of the bars.
I walked back to the teacher, who was too busy to be bothered, so I just kept on walking. I walked all the way back to my neighborhood. But I didn't go home. I climbed up into that Big Old Oak Tree.
And that's where I stayed. Ah, it was soo relaxing with patches of sunshine working its way through the leaves, laying on my back, checking out all of the activity: squirrels hoarding acorns, the corner lady fixing cereal by her pool, the Bazaars' cat prowling the other corner, the occasion car passing by. It was so relaxing and peaceful up until lunch time.
You see, my Mom had started working a couple blocks from home & she would walk home for lunch. In fact, she had to walk right under that Big Old Oak Tree. I layed out on a wide reaching branch as my mom walked unknowingly right below me. She was across the street and two doors down when she somehow tripped on the sidewalk and fell straight to her knees. She layed face down for a moment. I pulled my self up quickly into a leapfrog position on my branch. I heard her wimper, as she moved to get up. I saw the blood through her nylons, all across her knees. Up until this point, I had no idea that adults could even bleed. I thought that it was something left for little ones, like me.
It freaked me out. I jumped out of that big old oak tree and ran to my Mother before she could even get firm on her feet. In my world, a Mom that is vulnable to bleeding could die at any moment. I was terrified. More scared of that than I had even been of any wild-haired, wild-eyed, sneering, razor-lipped, kicking kid. More scared of that than in getting into hot water for cutting school on the very first day. More scared of that than in getting hurt myself jumping from that Big Old Oak Tree.
Shortly thereafter, I carved my initials into that tree. They were carved into a heart, along with a little boys initials. It was a forever thing. After climbing that tree for 5 years, we moved.
Twenty years later, I took a friend back to that Big Old Oak Tree and we found my carving. It had moved up and around a branch...several feet removed from where I remember originally carving it.
A few more years passed and I got married. I took my husband there, not knowing if the tree was even still there. It was. Still huge & expansive, like a great temple or compound.
My carved heart was gone though. In fact, that entire branch was gone...just a stub of where it had once been was left. I wondered if it had rotted, been struck from lightning or what.

Even though my personal mark on the tree was gone...the personal mark it had made on me was still here. I was glad the tree still stood. I know that it has served as a sanctuary and commune, a safe haven and escape & even as a launching pad for many other souls.
Every child should have one, regardless of their age.

*The Baby Oak Tree planted out front three years ago is now over 10' tall & is shadowed under our two 100 year old oak. The abhorsit gave them a 20 year life expectancy. I donned them with a good old-fashioned flat-bottom board rope swing.
May this home never be without the grace of an oak tree.