Pianos

Go ahead and giggle as you look at her.  Leaning a little to the left, one headlight a bit crooked, small dents in both sides of the hood's front corners.  Walk around the driver's side and notice the mangled door lock where someone tried to crowbar their way into her, the busted up driver's side rear hub cap.  The driver's side mirror has been replaced three times, the passenger's side window has been busted once, and the driver's side front strut was snapped in half once.  All damages that happened while I wasn't even in the vehicle (except the right side hood dent).  That poor abused car is my best friend.

She's taken on somewhere around 65,000 miles since I bought her 3 years ago.  Pretty impressive for a car that often sits idle for weeks and, on a few occasions, months at a time.  I'd buy her all over again if I could and I'm holding on until she just can't keep up with me any longer.

I've somewhat lost track of time but I got the car in early December three years ago.  That would be December of '09 right?  Dad had been gone going on 11 years and mom was packing up 30 years of our lives in the 2-story beige colonial with brown shutters to ready it for sale.  Tensions were high between my mother and all four of her daughters.  None of us could get along for even just a meal.  I was living part time in 3 different homes, in 3 different towns. It was the end of my couch surfing homeless days. 

That was the summer I hopped in that car and we took our first, most wonderful road trip.  Philadelphia to Indian Rocks Beach, Fl.  Just me & my Saturn with no ac and every cd I owned.  And peace for nearly 2 months.  I spent all but three days of that two months completely alone.  I remember about 6 days into the trip my phone rang and it was the first time I had spoken to a human being since I checked into the cottage a week prior.

Gloriousness!

That is what life is all about.

"I hope you haven't been doing much highway driving like this."  My hub assembly was completely fucked up.  My tire could have flown off the car at any moment.

Well, I'm pretty sure it was okish enough for my road trip to the Carolinas last summer.  Of course, that was after the time Jose cut me off, slammed on his brakes, lost control of his blue Blazer and took out the passenger side front corner of my car which could have been when the hub assembly was initially damaged.  But since the noises started.... eh, just three 130 mile trips into Maryland.... oh yeah, and the drive on I-95 every day to and from work.  Oh, and the 43 miles to my sister's house I made on many occasions.  Oh, and two or three trips out to Telford to hang with the beautiful MissRose.

I still owe $60 on those repairs and I don't have the money to pay it.

I remember the drive to Florida.  The rains in Georgia nearly killed me.  I hadn't driven through visibility like that since the nighttime October drives through the Great Smoky Mountains.  Tori kept me company and I had all the time in the world.  I've been lucky to have had an incredible amount of freedom over the past decade.  Freedom to do what makes me happy.  Freedom to be myself.  Freedom of time but not of money which is better than the reverse in my mind.  I had plenty of everything I needed.

Certain loves have left my life over the past three years.  Sometimes I miss them terribly.  Sometimes I don't give them the teeniest thought.  Sometimes, like now, they get a thought, a three quarter smile, and then go back into the cobwebby corner where they live until I need to borrow a memory, laugh, or break my heart.  Tonight I don't need those memories, tonight it's time to face forward. 

Right now I'm sitting at my kitchen table waiting for the last good light bulb in this apartment to burn out.  I'm clothed in multiple layers and wearing a winter hat, fingerless gloves and scarf, and wrapped in a blanket I use rarely because I refuse to ever wash it because its as soft as clouds.  I'm cold and I'm hungry.  But I'm getting by just fine. 

I pull my old cherry colored Samick out of the cobwebby corner.  She was pretty enough and she played nice enough.  She was brand new when I brought her home.  Home in Nashville.  Home in Antioch.  Home in Horsham.  Then they took her home and I never saw her again.  I don't miss her.  I just miss having her kind near me at all times.

I need little more than a date with my 990 pound friend in that big empty auditorium though I'll certainly settle for any of his smaller siblings.  No wonder I'm lost, I haven't had a heart to heart with myself in longer than I can remember.  I think it was maybe Goose Creek, South Carolina.  When was I in a place called Goose Creek?  I think it was a dream a lifetime ago.  A lifetime when it was warm and I wasn't here.

The excitement is starting to dance in my belly a bit.  "This is our year" MissRose constantly reminds me.  I need her constant reminders.  And from that cobwebby corner I see a shadowy form jumping up and down and laughing.  "Extraordinary lives don't just fall into peoples laps.  You have to take risks and make stupid choices." 

Fondly, Martha

I keep rereading the glittery snowman card.  I can't help it.  It brings a smile to my face every time.  It means more to me than it should.  I wish things were different.  Everything.  I really do.  It's always times like these that I fall back on my old friend, The Serenity Prayer.  Yes, an odd friend for a girl like me.  I take away the God part.  The personification of the energy that is bigger than Us is what I don't believe in.  It is the Universe and it is Me and You.  It's all semantics.

I often have to tell my kids that the transitions are always the hardest.  You just have to take that tiny section and repeat it over and over until you get it right.  I, personally, am very inconsistent.  I rarely make the same mistake more than twice, but I constantly make mistakes.  There's consistency in that I suppose, I am never perfect.  And never get it quite right.

Thinking back, it's hard to figure out where I veered left.  I think landing my dream job at 23 years old was my downfall.  I went from working three jobs and 16 - 18 hour days to working 25 or so hours in a week for 9 months out of the year.  It was a cushy lifestyle for a long time.  Sleeping in as much as I want.  Doing whatever I want, whenever I want.  Taking nice long 2 or 3 month roadtrips without a care in the world.  It all makes the task of finding a new job all the more daunting.  Why give all this up? Well, there's a cockroach story, a mouse story, a drug dealer story, a squatter story, and of course, the leopard print duct tape that holds my car together on too frequent an occasion. 

Not so much a dream job after all I suppose.

Not any more at least.  All good things come to an end.

Transitions are always the hardest part.

Transitions when you doubt yourself in every possible way are painful too. 

Yesterday was the painful climax of my week.  One of those weeks where nothing big happened but a million little things just went the wrong way.  I didn't handle it very well either.  It happens from time to time.  I'm calmer now, not ready to take on the world again yet, but calmer. 

One step at a time.

It's 9pm on a Friday night.  I'm already in my jammies, occasionally getting teary into my cherry whiskey spiked green tea and I don't know what I want to do next.  I know what I'm good at, I know what I like, and I know the April 22nd deadline is quickly approaching.  My 'want' and 'need' haven't been this far apart in 13 years.  It's unsettling and exhausting.

My glittery snowman card is smiling at me.  His arms stretched out as if wanting to hug my dumb self.  I'm holding on to a little part of our conversation.  (Relax, I'm not having conversations with the card.  I had a lovely talk with its author just before Christmas.  I'm not THAT crazy).  There is a certain similarity to the way things have played out in our lives.  It boils down to faith (in myself) and luck. 

That gives me severe heartburn and anxiety. 

So, I bought a big bottle of Tums and a few bottles of wine and am wishing on the stars I can't see in the city.

Great plan for my future huh?! 

:)

4 hours

They were able to save the photo albums from the 50's.... the albums themselves a little warped and stained but most of the photos in tact.  That's pretty impressive considering the 25 foot by 50 foot "pile" of trash that was nearly as tall as the rancher itself. 

"Where to begin" is always the hardest part of anything.  Do we begin with the drive through the neighborhood?  Houses spray painted with letters and markings to tell you the basics.  Is there electricity?  Gas?  Water?  The yellow and black demolition signs were awful.  Nearly every house on some blocks have them.  Piles of debris larger than cars were in most yards... mattresses, furniture, clothing, toys... 40 yard dumpsters at the top of streets overflowing with more piles of personal possessions  surrounding them. 

The first house on our list was condemned and no one was there.  We went next door and found a completely overwhelmed couple in their late 60's. He was in the back yard meandering around and she was in what was left of her kitchen trying to figure out what to do.  The carpets had been ripped out the day before and packing boxes and cleaning supplies were left for them.  All their clothing was dripping wet in 20 or so plastic bags out in the back yard.  There were few pieces of savable furniture and about a dozen already packed boxes.

At first they said there was nothing we could do to help them.  "It's all just a mess."  We told them we'd try our best to help anyway.  I went into the kitchen and asked her again what I could do.  "Nothing.  There's nothing left.  Nothing to do."  I quietly grabbed a box and some pots and started packing, eyeing, but not yet able to pack the deep square corningware roaster just like the one my mother used to have.

Less than 20 minutes later the kitchen countertops were cleared and I found out that the straw covering the backyard was courtesy of Sandy and needed to be cleared away.  Underneath it all somewhere was a patio of gray 4x8 pavers.  We started in the back corner and found a hot tub.  Unburied their paddleboat which was upside down in the middle of the yard.  Slowly uncovered the pier.  There was a complete, packaged grocery store rotisserie chicken on the pier.  The smell was... is still in my nose.... God awful in the worst way.  Imagine a 13 day old, sitting in the sun, rain, snow, sea water soaked, plastic encased rotisserie chicken.

A male and female mallard swam up to the pier and started talking with us at that point.  Within a half hour 2 more couples and a single female joined them.  Swimming around and laughing as we bagged up the mess.

Half of a plastic drinking pitcher.  A kid's plastic blue shovel.  Bright pink frisby.  Someone's Blue Cross Blue Shield paperwork from two towns away.  Dvds: White Christmas, Grease 2, Gilligan's Island, We Bought a Zoo, and one more that I can't remember right now.  A squeeze bottle of grape jelly.  Massive pilings.  Still that smell.  Not even just the chicken but the rotting wet sea grasses a foot deep.  Photos, nothing very personal but someone's photos.  Pieces of things.  Plastic hunks of stuff.  Unrecognizable remnants of people's lives.  A lady bug.

"It's only stuff," she said choking a little on the words after I complimented her gorgeous granite counter tops.  Those can be saved she was told.  The deep freezer, her laundry machines, all her kitchen appliances... gone.

We found a barbecue cover.  We found the dock.  We found half a rhododendron.  Under the straw and plastic bags of dripping clothing we found 3 bean plants still green and holding firm in the ground.  Another lady bug.  We started shoveling up the inch and a half of thick dark mud.  Somewhere, under all the muck, in the center of the yard in pavers is an eagle.  A custom piece their son did years ago.  We could see the outline of the circular area but nothing else through the mud.  That's a job for a power washer on another day.

Four hours and approximately 45+ Hefty Husky Contractor bags later the yard was looking good.  A yard again.  Some of the mud and water was already drying and you could already see what a lovely space it once was and will be again. 

The front yard was another story.  Or, more accurately, told the story.  The front yard reminded me as we drove off that our day there was done but this couple, along with all of their neighbors, were far from seeing the end of this.  Their whole lives sat in bags and pieces in their front yards.  I don't understand how waste management is going to deal with this.  I don't know how long it will take just to get the trash and debris out of the way and out of sight so that rebuilding can begin. 

Every once in a while I get a whiff of that smell still. 

I'd like to think we made a bit of difference for that couple today.  I feel like it wasn’t enough.  It probably won’t ever feel like it’s enough.  I’m on empathy overload and have reignited faith in mankind. 

2 weeks & 2 days

As I ate my soup standing at the kitchen counter, because my little kitchen table is covered with 6 months of unopened bills and credit card offers, listening to Pandora‘s odd mix of songs, I remembered how much I love Sarah McLachlan's voice.  It takes me back to Nashville, TN in late 1999.  Post the greatest affair of my life. 

I met a boy in my parent's basement one night.  I didn't think much of him.  I met that same boy years later and decided I was going to love him even though he didn't want to be loved.  And he loved me back in spite of himself. 

In the darkest time of my life, I loved and was loved.  The affair was bookended by the deaths of our fathers.  Mine on August 1, 1999 and his on October 24, 1999, both after long battles with cancer.  All the books in between read the same....  cigarettes and drunk sex, music and poetry.  Although the friendship seeped beyond that three months, the affair lasted just two weeks and two days and those were separated by a month and 850 miles.

It's difficult to think of the details.  Not because of feelings.  But because of the heavy beer and vodka cloud that hangs over the whole thing. 

We went on a real first date.  That I remember.  I got an email, “I have some extra cash this week and I want to take a pretty girl out.  What are you doing Friday?“  We had dinner somewhere on Welsh Rd in the northeast and then we shot pool on Levick and Frankford.  I dropped him off at home and we sat on his front steps talking.  His friend ended up stopping by sending me home a little abruptly much to his dismay.  That was sometime in late August.  We spent every day and night after that together until I moved back to Nashville September 8th and took his friend's affair with me.

I remember packing the 17 foot Penske truck the night before.  Most of my things were already in Nashville, in my cute apartment on Trails Circle.  Just a few odds and ends and those 1970’s barrel backed white chairs that are now occupying my storage space 2 blocks from the music school.  They were the last to go in the truck.  We all got drunk, chain smoked, and ignored saying what was really on our minds.  He wrote us a poem, gave it to me the next morning as the truck was parked in front of my family's house and we said our goodbyes.  He told me not to read it until I was in Nashville.  I read it at a rest stop near Roanoke, VA.

Men and women

Walk in and out of each others

Lives

Sometimes like lemmings to sea

Sometimes like pilgrims to the promised land

Searching for comfort

In an uncomfortable world

Once in a great while

Some will walk into each other

When the time is right

And both need compassion and healing

And passion

But life is chaos

And no time is the right

Because we all have different paths

Mine will lead me to North Broad Street

To finish my education

It will detour soon to a cemetery

Other paths include a Penske truck

And an 850 mile trek

In hopes of finding something

Keep saying that at 5:30

Tomorrow morning I will be upset

Truth is I have been upset for days

Yet at the same time

I have been joyous for weeks

Pain and ecstasy are divided

By a thin line or so they say

Now I feel the two have bled

Together in a swirl of beauty

I write in typical style

Thoughts flowing

Imperfect yet no revision

Like life the past is written

Only the future is an open page

Yet to be written

I hope our paths cross once again

But am satisfied with what I have received

Gift of the self is more precious than

Anything material

I thank you for sharing your self

With me

Changed yet again in significant fashion

More evolved more complete

In this journey toward death

A chance to grow

Explore the mind

And be comforted

In this uncomfortable world

Thank you,

I haven't gotten to the 2 days portion of the affair and the 10 years of my best friend after that.  But this story is over for now.  The wrinkled, handwritten piece of white legal pad paper with doodles in the margins lives peacefully with a handful of other handwritten and typed pages.  I haven’t looked through them since the last major snow storms years ago....

 
In 13 years I’ve had one boyfriend which lasted two years.  The rest of my time I’ve spent having affairs with extraordinary men who I can also call my friends.  Sometimes I think I should draw a line between love and friends and then I think “Silly me, true friends are the definition of love and the best kind of love at that.” 

until next time....

She's worried.  I don't know what's going on but it would be best if you lay low for a while.


That was a year ago.  I was compelled to make this trip and I was nervous about it.  Once I arrived, I instantly relaxed.  As soon as I closed my eyes and sank into his too comfy bed, everything felt ok.  And then he spoke and everything was all right.

A year to the day since the last time we played together.   We celebrated with 2 gigs that night and after that we sat in the front yard with a large bottle of Yellowtail, a couple of stray kittens, and eventually, a sunrise.  His eyes struck me as I watched him talk.  Red and slightly swollen and teary, cheeks a little hollow... he was on the wrong side of youth.  I know that means I am too. 

We had no intention of watching the sun come up over the bay or of anxiously waiting to see "OPEN" in Capt. Jim's window glow red and stumbling over at 6:30 am.  He drifted off while we waited for our omelets... eyes still open as I babbled about something when he startled and shouted, "E!"  Had I not been fighting to stay awake myself I would have gotten a good laugh of everyone in the restaurant turning and staring at us.  We climbed into bed around 10:30 am after picking up the dog and woke around 4... just in time to shower, eat, and play another gig.

The next morning we drove to South Carolina.  Every time I looked over from the passenger's seat I searched his eyes.  It was still there but softened by daylight, sobriety, and laughter.  We puzzled over spanish moss, marveled at the super cheap gas, and joked at the overabundance of pancake houses and BBQ places.  That evening after a wonderful home cooked meal, the three of us sat in the garage smoking and drinking wine and talking well into the night.  Though two of us had met electronically less than a year ago and in person only hours before, it felt as if we were lifelong friends.  I like these people.  No, love them.  Home to me has never been geographic.  It has always been, and I think always will be, in people.     

We returned to the North Carolina beaches to clouds and rain.  The second day of this I found myself alone for the first time in a week.  My dog friend was snoring and farting next to me on the soon to be homeless couch and my wish for the sun was merely wrapped in the desire for warmth.  I was expected back in Maryland that evening and called to inform them that I hadn't yet left and didn't intend to until sometime the following week. 

There were more gigs, more beers, more shots, more friends, a day on the beach, a moving day, movies, and Oreos and milk....

I finally arrived in Maryland nine days late.  The sun was hot on my face and my pajama pants were rolled up above my knees as I eased into the day on the back deck.  Morning coffee is meant to be enjoyed in wonderful places like this with the yellowing walnut tree leaves starting to fall and on the boat slip in Sneads Ferry, NC while the little fishes jump through the air as if they were dolphins.  There's still a little time left.... just a little.

I'm in love with second hand smoke again.  Yesterday, I understood that this is common among my non-smoking cousins.  "Cigarette fingers," she said, "they just make me think of Yiayia." 

Yiayia.....          Greece.... 


I'm also addicted to music again.  For that I am most thankful. 


As I neared the Pennsylvania border I saw a huge rainbow arching over Philadelphia and smiled.  This isn't so bad....  Then I crossed the Pennsylvania border and the skies opened up and released a hellish storm.  That's the problem with not having automatic windows... the sudden storm soaked through my seats, suitcase and bags, puddled in my purse and drenched my keyboard case before traffic stopped enough for me to reach over and roll them up.  A grand Welcome back. 

The rains washed the last of  the North Carolina sand from my tire treads and the lack of butterflies here now strikes me.  I'm getting farther from the peace music gives me and closer to the stress of teaching.

It's time to find the new in-between. 

As I welcome fall this year, I look forward to more than just next summer vacation.

"It's been sunny and hot here with thunderstorms every day since you left." 

I haven't left in 13 years.... it's about time.

sshhh

I may have to put on pants today.  It's rather chilly for an early July day.  The 11 day heat wave that just broke is making these average temps seem chilly.  The wind feels like late August at the Jersey shore but lacking the salty sting in the air.  It's a beautiful day and it's silent both in my head and out.  I'm sitting cross legged on my bed but I'm not in Philly anymore.  I'm not sure where I am.  It's a nice feeling.

There are a lot of secrets swirling around me.  Not all mine.  In fact, so many people have told me their deep dark shames that I can't seem to remember my own right now.  I feel as if I'm taking a vacation from my own ugly to wade around in that of my loved ones.  This is not the beautiful kind of ugly, this is certainly the Devil trying to destroy the people I love.

The Devil is trying to destroy me too.  I can feel it tugging at my hair.  Today I'm not going down without a fight.  Nor are my friends.  My inner superhero is dressed for battle.

My skin is a lovely shade of greek girl.  I can't help it.  The sun relaxes me and quiets the noise around me.  I sunscreen my face and my tattoos.  The rest of me is golden, my back already a good shade of mavri.  I spent hours in the sun, even during the "heat wave" without much more than breaks for a glass of water.  There is something wrong with me but I don't mind.

I remember my summer in Greece.  I did not tan much.  I did not do much.  I was still fat and unhappy.  I was flopping around in my own pool of hate and yuck.  No one saved me.  No one tried to help me even.  I had to do it for myself.  Ikaria was my first step. 

My grandmother met me at the airport in Athens and we took a cab to her cousin's house in Piraeus where we spent the night.  The next morning we would catch the fast ferry to the island.  Pictures simply don't do any of it justice.  I will post none.  If you want to see it, you must go.  And go now before the oil drilling begins.

There really isn't much to say about my time there.  I spent time with my grandparents and quietly explored the island, it's beaches, towns, food, and waters.  I didn't go to the discos, even when my cousins tried to drag me there.  This trip had one purpose, find how to start putting myself back together. 

I remember Nas and Armenistis, Faros, Agyios, Evdilos.... prickly pears, figs, grapes, cheese, goats... the mountains, the dogs....  It's all tucked away for me to revisit every time I close my eyes.  I want nothing more than to return. 

That was a lie. 

There is nothing more I want than to return with my friends to show them how beauty still exists in this world.  It is alive and well and right under our noses.  One at a time I want to show you absolute perfection, heaven on Earth.  I feel like if I can take you there everything will be better, like magic.  I know that's not true but my naivete believes that the perfect will sweep you off your feet and heal you too.



But who am I kidding?  It won't heal you.  It didn't heal me.  I returned to the states relaxed and recharged but still swimming in the cesspool of the life I built.  It took years for me to really get to the happy.  I can't save any of you.  I can't even help you see what I see in yourselves or the world around us.  My wishes for you, myself, and us will just keep dog paddling around the Aegean Sea until they reach shore or drown.  Either way, it's the way it should be. 

Moonflower Road

I drove by the old 2 story beige colonial tonight around midnight.  The driveway looked like a parking lot and the American flag was out.  Some things never change.  Though Dad always brought the flag in at sun down.  "It's respect" he used to tell me. 

The gospel tent was up on the corner of Moreland and Meetinghouse.  I'm pretty shocked that that lot is still empty... all the other farm land around started disappearing in my early teens and is now all housing developments and schools and stores.  Not this corner.  I like that it's still there.  Store fronts change names, fences go up, new traffic lights get put in but the north west corner of Moreland and Meetinghouse is still just an open field that houses the gospel tent a few weeks every year.

I'd forgotten what it's like to drive around semi-aimlessly at night..... car windows rolled down and heat coming through the floor vents.  A wet day and somehow reminding me of an early October night.  An early October night in August 1999.  My timeline is severely skewed.  To confuse me more my radio station is stuck in October 2011 and I smell skunk from sometime in 1985.

I drove by 1991 on Saturday though it didn't bring back the flood that tonight did.  Under the "love and affection" bridge, up the hill, and there on the right, the Auto Zone.  The gray brick wall is the only recognizable part of the old music store.  I reminded myself that the little teaching studios in the back are gone as is, most likely, the blue commercial carpeting that ran through the place.  No more guitars or amps or anything familiar and to walk in that building or the house I grew up in would surely ruin my memories.  I don't like change, though I accept it.  I want the pictures in my head to stay just the way they are.

Terwood used to be my favorite road to ride down on full moon nights.  Back before cars had daytime running lights that you couldn't ever turn off.  Dad's maroon boxy Dodge Aries used to be so clumsy on the hills and curves... and the deer.... I'm lucky that my experiences with them along that stretch of road were always just almosts.

Nearly three years have passed since I've visited any of these places.  I don't mind if I never go back again.  If I close my eyes, I have a clearer vision of home than my drive-by tonight or any other night will ever give me.  Not to mention I wanted to beat down my mother's door and yell at them for forgetting the flag out and unlit.....