The Dead Guy in the Attic

This is hereditary, and I am sorry.  I think you've grown out of it, for the most part me too; at least I handle it differently than history would tell.  For many years I was frightened of going down to do laundry in the basement and would make the dog go with me.  If the dog was uninterested, I would drag a cat along, as if a meow would scare away any heebie jeebies; three quarters of the time either species would be totally bored and hightail it back up the rickety wooden stairs that were open at the back so that your ankle could be grabbed by the, by the....by the unknown shiver that ran up my grown adult spine.  Yes, I believe in ghosts.  Yes, I will tell why someday.

Of course, Brian grew up with his flibbertygibbet mother blasting through the basement door, clutching the laundry basket and trying to breathe normally so as to not alarm the boy.    For some reason the attic was not as gruesome, maybe because the intense summer heat would kill all the spiders, but there was still a tension, a quick glance around to see anything amiss.  It was our little grey cat Fiona's favorite place, and she knew how to stick her head out of the eaves and grab a sparrow that had built a nest in the gutter.

Case in point, we were sitting on the couch watching television when the indoor cat ran through the indoor living room with a bird in her mouth.  A living bird.  Where the hell did that cat get a bird?  C'mere, you.  The bird was indeed alive and not much hurt, but the only way I could get her to release the poor thing was to stick the both of them under the cold faucet of the bathtub.  Fiona bulleted, angry at being robbed of her prize, and the bird was stunned at the deliverance by flume.  It was too scared for me to dry it off, so once I opened the back door, it took off in a loop de loop trajectory, straightened out, and headed for the neighbor's tree.

But if Bri wanted something from the attic, he would ask me to get it, and I didn't blame him, it was completely understandable and we had finally gotten him to the realization that there were No Crocodiles under his bed at night.  One step at a time.

I'm not sure who came up with it, but it was decided that maybe the reason the attic contained an air of menace was that perhaps some guy got himself shot up there.  The house was one hundred eighteen years old, and I still have the copper slug I dug out of one of the doors, what other human problems had taken place within the stone walls?  Dead guy in the attic, said son Brian.  Mom, I don't want to go up there.  Would you get my Castle Greyskull, please?

As I said, life was tough enough without bodies in the attic waiting for you to view their shadowed remains.  But how could the dead guy in the attic become a friendly, non-threatening entity?  Christmas!  Sure, Christmas, a time of cheer and presents and sweets and Santas!  On one of the gift tags for Bri, I wrote "To Brian, with Love.  From the Dead Guy in the Attic" with a happy little doodle of a skull with cartoon hearts floating above it.

This was great, who else would give my son a gift?  Tags were made from the dog, the cats, Darth Vader, his bicycle, the peas he hated to eat, the Nintendo, the house, Godzilla, and all the Japanese moviemakers who made those monster films.  You have to see Monster Island.  Everybody is there.  It began a tradition, and he has kept the tags from through the years.

Now he's in DC, and more likely than not, I don't see him during the Christmas season; that's okay, the tags still continue, he just gets gifts mailed or picks things up the next time he's in town.  It's handier for all if he and Dana come up in a rental car; he was once upgraded to a canary yellow Mercedes Benz sports car.  It was awesome.

This year, he sent me several fascinating books and a terrific photographer's set up kit with lights, a tent, and other things that will allow me to take decent photos of my artwork.  On the inner receipt, there were messages; "Merry Christmas, I think you'll like this,"  "Don't let this book freak you out about any of the trips I take; I know not to do what she (the author) does," and then there was the heart-tugger.  "From the Dead Guy in the Attic, with Love."  I'm blinking back tears.

Memories tumbled out and melded into a scene of a young boy, learning to go up the stairs to the attic without fear, knowing that all he would find would be a part of his home, a part of his life.  A part of mine.

The cold is snapping crisp, and the sky is clear to the stars; there is no cloud ceiling to trap the city heat.    Sparrows cluster in pines and hedges to create a mini biome of warmth; squirrels semi-hibernate, packed together into a big squirrel ball, appearing outside only when necessary.  The long nights of winter will be illuminated tomorrow night by the new moon as this year turns into the next; there will be noise and clatter at midnight with fireworks and factory whistles.  Sleep well and reflect on how far you've come, how many stairs you have climbed.  You've done well.  I am proud of you.  Good, peaceful night.

Night City

The snow has melted down to the grass and pavement, yet by the time we walked down the street to a next destination, a thin layer of crystalline ice formed over the sidewalks so that clinging to each other by the elbow made sense.  The air was still, and in spite of the freezing taking place under our feet, it felt warm.  Of course, considering the happy state we were in, everything was perfect.

The battered, jury-rigged outer door of the first establishment leading to the uneven stairs and inner sanctum were lovely in its brokenness.  The totally painted black insides lit by red bulbs and orange strings of Christmas lights, which hung like stars where wall and ceiling met, were punctuated by opinionated scribbles and the throughly welcoming patrons whose feelings were underscored by variously fancy pronunciations of the F word depending on beer intake, and were deemed as icing on the cake.  We settled on layers of duct tape committed to holding the seats together, as the host of the beginning part of the evening, Chris the barkeep, came to attend.  Diane found a dime, declaring that this would bring luck to the goings-on.

The crowd we are part of doesn't have the energy for a bar fight, thank heavens, and most are done by eleven, the starting point for the next crowd of which I am no longer a member.  Sleeping till three in the afternoon just isn't my thing, so fare thee well, early morning breakfasts at 4 a.m., and I don't miss being up till the sun rises.  No, no, no.  The arguments at the other end of a long bar, if that is what you could call them, centered around New York state taxes for businessmen, the stalled building of another bridge to Canada, and who was in charge of what down at City Hall.  Sincerity and heartfelt emotion oiled the wheels of these discussions, and loud approval or dissolution bounced off the black walls.  Diane and I stuck to topics of humanity, film, and who played what in which rock group until we decided we were hungry, and so bade Chris farewell and wished him luck in finding his way to Aruba.

This is when the night people were milling about, and we saw a group of about thirty college age kids traipsing down the street, dressed as though they were putting on a play of Clockwork Orange crossed with Cirque de Soleil.  Other folks were in hoodies pulled up and over faces, tweed jackets, suits, or ninja bandanas wrapped around foreheads.  We were seated by darling waiters wearing long, white aprons next to a small, burning fireplace, which proved that the dime was working and thus preserving the glow of pinot grigio and Coors Light.  What else but wings, and the waitress suggested that we would save four dollars by ordering a double rather than two singles, craftily adding to her tip, for no one else had ever been so thoughtful in evening fiscal expenditures.

The wings were grand, the fireplace was grand, and we were grand.  After an hour or so, it was decided that it was time to go grocery shopping.  Apparently, there is a better selection of coffee creamers on this side of the border, and Diane wanted to grab several before returning to her native homeland.  Me, I just needed milk and a sweet potato.  Grocery shopping after a night out is a hell of a lot more fun than a 4 a.m. breakfast.

Immediately upon entering the grocery in my mostly Hispanic neighborhood, another young man came over and helped extricate baskets for us from the stack.  We weren't having trouble, he just ambled by and was brought up right by his mother.  Hello, ladies.  Mira, por qué necesita una cesta?  Yes we do, sweetie.  Dos, por favor.  Then we wandered the aisles and dug through the half price candy canes, of which I now have three boxes for my kids.  Di was trying to convince me that peppermint is an excellent flavoring for coffee. I'll go as far as caramel, but after that, I'm not messing with mother nature.  It was after eleven, and police cars were starting to cruise the street.  And by golly, it felt like time for bed.

I stayed up for a while, it's always good to get an I've-made-it-home email from the other, and hers came a bit later as there was a back-up at the Peace Bridge from Canadian shoppers returning home.   Jammies, then; brush teeth, feed the fish, and turn out the lights.  Tomorrow is Sunday, beautiful Sunday, a day made for art.  I have my painting clothes on,  I can't tell you what they are, but the functionality outweighs the decorum factor.

Sleep well, we are on the other side of the solstice and I've read that the moon on New Year's Eve will be new, an event that last happened 19 years ago.  Think about a fresh start, what would it take to put one foot forward?  I know that can be a steep step, but as for myself, watch my paints fly.  I dream of canvases to fill with stories and history, of loved ones and ocean tides bringing coquinas and broken corals to the water's salty edge.  Just as the moon pulls on the bodies of water, be assured it casts a net over our human selves as well.  Sleep as the planets spin above, each in its own orbit, each with its own  moons.  What if the earth had two moons, would we go twice as mad each lunar fullness?  Wouldn't that be interesting....get home safe, traveller.

Tiney Blue Stars

"I saw the stars and they wer tiney blue and sparkly and prity and I saw red lights on bildens."

The question was, "What do you see when it's dark out?"  Donald had written this down, asking for help in spelling the word "lights."  He had come in earlier that week, telling me that his leg hurt where his cousin hit him; he was able to pull up his pants leg to his lower thigh where the purple imprint of a belt buckle raised a welt.  How old is your cousin?  One.  He's one and he's mean.  Now, there is no way a one year old could wield a belt for the buckle to land that high up, pointing downward, with such impact.

I sent him to the nurse and called his home, which was a phone number connected with an aunt who would then go down the street to find the father.  The aunt was primarily responsible for Donald, and had little love for him.  He came in unwashed, with a smile and was ADHD, couldn't stay in his seat or focus long enough to stay with a sentence.  He was adorable and drove most teachers nuts, including me.

"Oh, that was Donald's cousin who did that, he's a terror and hit Donald with the belt.  Ha ha.  We put ice on it."  Age?  One.  Of course.  Collaborating with the nurse's examination, authorities were called to go check on things; Donald came back later that week to report that his aunt was treating him nicer and feeding him.  He had difficulty reading, wanted to be loved, and was crazy about his addled father; an older man who loved his son but was lost himself.

Clothing that I gave Donald would get taken by another at home, school supplies that I brought would be given to the other kids; when you have fortune on the street, you share what you have with everyone.  He was under my feet, constantly close;  I ate with my class down in the cafeteria, Donald always wanted to know what was in my lunchbox.  Rice and squid.  Wanna try it?  He was game for anything.  Can I have your grapes?  He often didn't know where he would be sleeping that night.

Donald couldn't draw, but could make a game or a toy out of paper.  He folded notebook paper into a cell phone to call his posse to meet him on the corner, he wrote I love yous to all the girls in class, commendable in that he kept it to one girlfriend at a time.  And that is where his poetry began, in his scrawly, misspelled Valentines.  The boy had observational skills and expression, more than the others, but he didn't want to write, didn't see the value in it.

I can only hope that the constant repetition to him that he had a gifted way with words will serve him in a manner other than impressing the ladies.  It has been five years since his family moved away, and he left the school where I worked.  Cleaning off the notes from my refrigerator this day found his small missive, the answer to what he saw in the dark; he knew enough to look up at the night sky, to see the city buildings blinking red to warn low aircraft.  It was a note, a story of his heart.  He had touched mine.

If you have a place to sleep where you are warm and safe, count your blessings; if you are with people who love and care for you, that adds dimension to the story.  But if you are alone, unsure of what night brings, think of my little Donald who endured adult anger and indifference, but still found it worthwhile to remember what the stars looked like.  Sleep well, dear innocent.

Melted

Remember the toys from years ago that were conceived by designers who thought that heating elements  were essential components?  I had a Vacu-form, a Creepy Crawler Designer, a woodburning kit, a chemistry set with an alcohol lamp, and an Easy Bake oven.  My room smelled of melting plastic and hot metal, with elixirs of sulfur mixing with vanilla cake.  Tonight, my apartment is seething with hot melting plastic and the familiar dizzy high is just kicking in.  I wish I could stop, but I have 90 plastic cups to melt in the oven at 250 degrees and a class that has to make a Christmas present for their parents.  Not only do they have to be melted, but the bottoms cut off and two holes punched in each; what for?

Suncatchers.  Cups made of Number 6 plastic are made of the same formula as Shrinky Dink plastic, and so will melt into circle shapes that are then strung together and hung in front of a sunny window to throw red, yellow and green shards of light all around the room.  This sounded like such a good idea, and fit all the ethnic groups in the room; those who celebrate and those who don't.

But heck, do you realize how many of my kids don't know how to tie?  I didn't, therefore some very fast calculations as to what and when have to be examined since I will be damned if I am tying 90 discs together.  It's taken me two hours to melt cups, and god knows what's happened to my brain.  No wise observations, thank you.

The full moon climbed the sky staircase this cracking cold evening, I had slogged down a snow filled alley to get to a shop for a few packages; a heavy man had to pick up his English bulldog who stood paralyzed in the snow.  Wise dog, they aren't made for plowing through drifts, so stocky and wide.  A couple was in the shop with me, buying everything in sight as they were stoned, a state where every thing is amazing.  Wow, I need that, they would say as articles were examined and held up for scrutiny.  I can only hope they found their way to the next shop down, where empty boxes of Trix and Lucky Charms had been turned into clocks, and a Barbie doll holding Christmas ornaments stood in an aquarium of small silver fish.

Later the next day, after the Jimmy Hendrix plastic daze, the flattened, warped discs were loaded into a bag with string and sparkly gold pipe cleaners.  The kids were enchanted, and as I did the stringing, all they had to do was tie the end off.  Some were tied into necklaces, others were knotted into Gordian mazes.  But just wait till you see them try to fold wrapping paper.  I ended up doing thirty presents, fold fold, tape tape.  Twist on the pipe cleaner.  Voila, le suncatcher; I demonstrated, holding the completed concoction up to the window.  They oohed and ahhhed.  One day left to go.

Several of the students brought in homemade presents for me, drawn pictures with "The Best Teaher" crayoned on them; the best teaher better step up on the phonics lessons.   My favorite was my little guy who had wrapped up books from his own shelf at home.  But, this is a great book, I said, you need this at home....I got three of them, he said, holding up three fingers, first grade style.  I opened his last offering and by jingo, it was one of my own books that he had taken home earlier, my name still in it.  He beamed as I said it was one of my favorites, then read it to the class.  

They just want everything to be all right.  All the hugs I received that day said so.  We sent home bags of food with some, with those living in shelters;  mittens, hats, coats, pants, shirts, you need it, let me know.  They said they would miss me, I told them they would be missed as well, and that's true.  You worry about them, with their stories of rats running over the beds, of break ins, of sleeping on piles of clothes, Moms going off for days, and they end up shuffled to aunts, grandparents, neighbors.  It lends sadness to what I can and cannot do.

In memory, I still smell the heat of Christmas bulbs against resin-full pine needles packed with heavy silver tinsel that became brittle and broke apart.  We had bubble lights, glass ornaments, foil stars.  It was with trepidation that my parents would plug in the lights, no more than fifteen minutes or the tree would explode.  Let's not get crazy here.  Stories of aluminum trees electrocuting their owners verified that Christmas trees would kill you the second you turned your back.  It was magic when they didn't, and became all right, if only for a moment.

Another solstice to stretch into the equinox; there is much to get through before snow melts and buds swell.  Sleep through this night safely, nothing will harm you.

Botanicus splendiferousii

My friend Paul and I put our heads down and pushed into the wind, like lake cutters slicing through ice; it was a drop in temperature from previous days, and went through flesh to bone.  Living here in what is known as a snow belt, it was hardly noticeable to us except that it whipped the small flakes into  stinging punctuations.

We had fiddled about with what to do on a Saturday, landing on the decision to explore the Botanical Gardens, especially since the poinsettia displays were on exhibit.  We both love plants, but my apartment is kept nursing home hot, even though I rarely turn on the steam register; it dries out plants and causes them to resist blooming.  I have bequeathed all my orchids to Paul, whose home has a semi-clerestory window that allows the necessary cold to set spikes and blossoms.  She and her husband maintain their house at a more reasonable temperature than my overwarm apartment; if the older people see a window open you get yelled at, for management will then turn down the heating plant, the boilers run by oil.  The cats and fish have no complaints, and I don't either, truly.  I've been cold before, and this is a minor heaven.

But as soon as we gained the double doors, the flush of humidity and damp soil pulled us into the world of palms and cycads, ferns and banana plants.  And poinsettias, which, I understand, are trees in the southwest; here, trying to keep one alive beyond the season has yet to happen in spite of my following whatever directions given.  My cookie-baking neighbor, Concetta, had one that was going on six years; fat, lush, and exuberantly red.  "You keep inna dark.  See?"  Sure, I can do that; what went wrong is still unknown, but this floracide had to stop, I decided.

So I visit the more ticklish plants at gardens and friend's homes.  Outside, I can grow darn near anything; inside, it's a contest between me and Fate.  But the indoor botany of the immense glass house is enchanting, uplifting; just think of all those plants pumping out oxygen.

There are shapes seen only in fifties science fiction films, coloration and a continuous plunge of growth; there are seven different biospheres of seven different climates, and each has adaptive greenery that has learned through millennium what is required to survive.  After the entryway, which was stuffed with red and green and every variation between, you are led into the rainforest which has an immense koi pond.  Shallow, you can see the beasts as they glide and feed, tails tipping above the surface, wagging like happy dogs.  A vine with cloud blue blossoms spangles through the ferns and bird of paradise flowers; snow outside?  You wouldn't know it.  A waterfall sprays and splashes, adding more to the freshening humidity which is not thick, but cooler.  This is contrasted with the next climate, for a wall of heat hits you in the face just as if you just walked into a restaurant kitchen.

It is the xerosphere, where cactus and succulents abide, most dangerously.  Don't be fooled by fuzzy appearing outgrowths and spines; most have hooks at the ends that will snag into your human flesh.  You might as well stick your hand into a barrel of fiberglass insulation.  Now these are some weird shapes, designed to protect the plant, conserve moisture, and maximize any gathering of rain by having it run down the furrows of growth, down to the roots.  Fascinating, ancient.  Falling on one of the agave plants would send you to hell on a blue green crucifix, the thorny points are that sharp.

We trot through the carnivorous plants and ivies, and into the seasonal display room where a large red velvet throne will hold Santa amid a carnival display of more poinsettias.  Paul and I take a few photos and head through begonias and into the orchid room.  There is one with tiny flowers throwing off a honeyed fragrance, sweet and telling of exotic realms in another corner of the world.  If I could wake up anywhere tomorrow morning, it would be where these flowers exhale; however that would probably be a sky-high tree branch as orchids are epiphytes.  They don't need soil, just something to hang onto.  Still.

We round through the Florida swamp area, dotted with Spanish moss and plastic alligators, with a well-engineered aquarium of gigantic size containing gars and other smaller fish.  Papyrus and waterplants sprout up through the surrounding display, also filled with water and duckweed.  It leads out to the main lobby, where the lemon tree has blossomed, and the date palm is dropping fruit.  We take a final look at the explosions of green, and head out to the greying world, for it is late wintry afternoon, and the sun is descending without fanfare or brilliant farewell.   The chill once again bites at us, snapping at our cheeks with insolence.

Paul has brought me art books that her husband, an art teacher at a private school, is disposing of to make more room for his students.  I take them upstairs and sit with a hot chocolate, perusing what is what.  The green vibrations still reverberate, the voices of plants sigh within.

The dark comes so early, don't feel badly if you don't get much done; we are designed to slow down in winter, at least at this latitude.   Nothing like sitting on the couch with a book and a cup of something or a glass of either; the work week is coming with its own business and time will compress into boxes of hours.  Dream above time, above the fiery stars where the galaxies never end and therefore the corporeality of clocks does.  I am there, I shall watch over you.  Sleep well.

Osso di Morte

Step One:  Crack six eggs one-handed, whip the shells into the sink; get that mess out of the way, now.

Step Two:  After beating the eggs, pour in a two-pound bag of confectionary sugar.  This is not for those who like to measure, it already says "two pounds" on the bag, so get those scissors working and open that rascal. Flour is added, and this is the tricky part; I don't measure.  Put in a cup at a time until it looks like dough, but is still soft.  Try one and a half for starters. Four teaspoons of vanilla, four teaspoons of baking powder at the same time and mix with a spoon, not with a mixer; do that and your cookies will be dry, and there is no room in life for cookies that should be used as styrofoam peanuts.  This is Christmas, so get your tail moving.

Step Three: Roll the dough with both hands so it looks like bones.  Christmas, you ask?  This isn't Halloween, is it?  No it's not, it's a tradition around here and if you don't like tradition, maybe you can tell us when you joined Al Qaida.

Step Four:  Put these bad boys on parchment paper and let them dry overnight.
Step Five:  Bake.  Your friends will lay down on the floor and scream after eating just one, these Christmas cookies are that serious.

Sit down and congratulate yourself on another holiday festivity accomplished; keep the ingredients out 'cause you aren't done yet.  Tomorrow it's meringues.   Find that piping bag.   Merry.