Gather no moss
Snow-covered, the Front Range Mountains glow like lamps on the distant horizon as I drive west toward the Rockies’ grand silhouette. Half my lifetime ago I wrote of her in a letter to a man I was missing in a town far away. No matter the direction I turn, I cannot escape the jagged grandeur. There mustn’t be a soul alive, once held this glorious range in sight, able to swipe her from memory. Like a priceless painting she must haunt their memories. Should I leave, she surely shall haunt mine. Seeing her again through eyes twice as old, I was right.
I forgot how much Colorado raised me. Before Denver, I didn’t know about being a girl or about boys for that matter, except to dare them to visit the orange grove next to my house because my big brother swore on his grave that Bigfoot lived there. I didn’t know the sweet freedom of a driver’s license, or the agony of having it taken away the very day I got it. I hadn’t regretted wearing white pants on that fateful day of an otherwise uneventful seventh grade field trip. I hadn’t taken for granted the beauty of silence in the household or known the ugliness of discord. I hadn’t enjoyed the misery of high school. I hadn’t fallen in love.
Until Colorado, life was a Saturday morning cartoon. Cars smiled and bounced off the ground when their horns honked and self-doubting trains always made it up the impossible hill. Prehistoric married couples literally lived under rocks and a single can of spinach fixed everything. When I learned my bedroom was up for sale to be traded for a tent in “The West,” I pictured horse-drawn wagons. I envisioned tall, skinny wooden structures out back that smelled as bad as Clearwater Bay when the Red Tide came. I imagined the Lone Ranger and Tonto showing up outside my shabby wooden cabin to warn me of approaching danger. I thought it would be barren. I thought it would be deserted. I feared it would be ruthless.
I met my best friend my first week at Powell Junior High. We shared the same look of dread in gym class as we sulked on the sidelines. Until Denver, I didn’t know those were made of chalk. I didn’t know we could steal the ball, much less dunk it. I hauled ass one weekend to see her after she had to move to Arizona with her parents. I called my dad from a pay phone in Albuquerque to tell him I was okay. I told him about the sunset in Raton. When I called him again from my destination in Mesa, I was all but lost to my own directionless path – seduced by Sedona and the autonomy of the open road.
Denver gifted me street smarts and a daughter (irony noted). Now, I drive north on University Boulevard and see DU, where I found purpose. I drive south and the houses I once cherished call to me to stop by for a chat. The one on Madison Circle is the one I ran away from. The one on East Nichols is the one I ran to. The one on Green Oaks Drive is where I surrendered my heart.
I drive up Downing to Speer and into the city and pass by the courthouse where I once daydreamed I’d be a lawyer. I open my sliding glass door to hear the whooshing cars and shouting ambulances approaching Swedish Hospital where I became a mom. Steadfast in the background is Mt. Evans and the magnificent picture for which she faithfully poses.
Brutal then that my Florida roots tug at my heart with the might of a Grand Oak. The sound of acorns and twigs crackling beneath the slow roll of tires up an unpaved driveway. The sway of dangling Spanish moss and the lullaby of leaves rustling through an army of branches. If moss is indeed a metaphor for responsibilities and cares, I don’t know if for the life I’ve lived I have gathered an abundance or none at all. I only know I left Denver with a bit of knowledge and returned with a bit of wisdom. It doesn’t seem complex. Sometimes stones roll and sometimes they don’t. Motion and stagnation each has its merits.
The frigid air flows through the crack in the sliding glass door I leave open as I drift off to dream. Warm beneath the thick of blankets and thoughts of family close by, I embrace the cold. On the brink of sleep I let myself hear the penetrating howl of the wind off the Gulf ahead of a summer storm. I feel the first step off the deck into the cool of the sand. I see the Gulf just outside boasting the surreal colors of a movie scene. Cloud laden, the late afternoon sun casts hazy hues of lilac and jade over a tranquil sea and empty shore as I gaze west toward the Gulf’s setting sun. There mustn’t be a soul alive once held this mesmerizing horizon in sight able to swipe her from memory. Like a priceless painting she must haunt their memories. Should I leave, she surely shall haunt mine.
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Gather no moss
I drive up Downing to Speer and into the city where I pass by the courthouse where I once daydreamed I’d be a lawyer. I open my sliding glass door to hear the whooshing cars and shouting ambulances approaching Swedish Hospital where I became a mom. Steadfast in the background is Mt. Evans and the magnificent picture for which she faithfully poses.
Brutal then that my Florida roots tug at my heart with the might of a Grand Oak. The sound of acorns and twigs crackling beneath the slow roll of tires up an unpaved driveway. The sway of dangling Spanish moss and the lullaby of leaves rustling through an army of branches. If moss is indeed a metaphor for responsibilities and cares, I don’t know if for the life I’ve lived I have gathered an abundance or none at all. I only know I left Denver with a bit of knowledge and returned with a bit of wisdom. It doesn’t seem complex. Sometimes stones roll and sometimes they don’t. Motion and stagnation each has its merits.
The frigid air flows through the crack in the sliding glass door I leave open as I drift off to dream. Warm beneath the thick of blankets and thoughts of family close by, I embrace the cold. On the brink of sleep I let myself hear the penetrating howl of the wind off the Gulf ahead of a summer storm. I feel the first step off the deck into the cool of the sand. I see the Gulf just outside boasting the surreal colors of a movie scene. Cloud laden, the late afternoon sun casts hazy hues of lilac and jade over a tranquil sea and empty shore as I gaze west toward the Gulf’s setting sun. There mustn’t be a soul alive once held this mesmerizing horizon in sight able to swipe her from memory. Like a priceless painting she must haunt their memories. Should I leave, she surely shall haunt mine.
continued
It began with extraordinary entrance. The carport door flung open and Sister’s grand silhouette posed in the doorway, structured and tense in a way I’d never seen. She called to me and her voice froze me. Not because I was afraid or alarmed, but because I could tell from the tone of it that she was, and that terrified me more than anything. Sister called to me like a concerned mother, with that unmistakable tone - the one that knows and questions at the same time, the one that at once shows no mercy while begging for that it summons.
“Caroline!” was all she shouted.
I almost couldn’t breathe. The hose I twirled about to whimsically decorate the space above me with disappearing water designs fell from my limp hand as I looked up to recognize the source of Sister’s concern. Behind the cheery parade of sun-laced clouds I’d come to trust, a line of darkness swarmed. I had not expected the fixed picture that met my glance as my focus was on the fleeting patterns I was intent on creating. A black wall stared back at me, one that painted its own changing shapes and swerves as if to mock the elementary nature of my attempt at art. The wind picked up speed I didn’t know it was capable of, and I looked around only to realize I was alone in the yard against a force that seemed as powerful as any Reverend Strish had mentioned during sermon at the First Presbyterian.
I could tell by Sister’s out-reached arms that I shouldn’t waste any time at the spigot turning off the water. Normally, such activity would earn me an hour of weed pulling and a lecture about the hardships of drought, but in that moment I understood the immediacy of shelter to be paramount. My feet engaged themselves seemingly without instruction, but moved me along as though they were stuck in slow motion. I fled, but time stood still. With every step the carport grew farther away and the sky marched closer. It moved deliberately now, unlike its stealthy approach, determined to be reckoned with. The wind worked to impede my progress at first, pushing against my chest, then tagged me from behind as if playing a game, thrusting me toward my goal line. Tears blurred my image of Sister in the doorway, and I wiped them away as I escaped toward the refuge of her arms. Clearer vision revealed a circling sky, colored with swirls of grays and white like shades of paint mixing together. As they blended, blackness soaked into the sky like an angry sponge. A short distance behind the house a remorseless arm reached down from the storm’s swollen belly. I could only imagine it intended to steal trinkets made of trees and houses to keep as souvenirs. Fear enveloped me and encouraged me to reach Sister.
I can recall the events of the next several minutes only like those of a dream, in bits and pieces that don’t seem to flow, but somehow maintain order enough to make sense. I remember feeling the concrete floor of the carport under my feet, then Sister’s firm grip just beneath my shoulders as she scurried me inside and down the back stairs. The electricity flickered and was gone. I remember a corner and how Sister covered me. Her mass hid me from what natural light would have allowed me to see until her back tired and her weight shifted, suddenly exposing me to seldom seen looks on familiar faces. Like snapshots they appeared out of darkness in the patches of light that flashed through the ground level window above us and vanished only to appear again in varied form. The strobelike effect made me dizzy, but, mesmerized, I could not avert my eyes. I strained them to make sense of the chaos outside. Nana’s lawn furniture danced in the sky. Tree branches and shingles whisked by as if they had somewhere to go. Pieces of everything speckled the view. The wind made such noise that it became something other than wind. It carried on like an obnoxious machine that I wanted desperately to unplug, but couldn’t. Its power was unstoppable. There was no cord to trace, no switch to manipulate, no closet to shove it in. It turned itself on and nothing could drain its energy.
Sister had talked about this kind of storm. She called them wind monsters and said they lived inside thunderstorms but didn’t come out very often. I think she fibbed about that part because she was always watching the sky and telling us to mind the weather. I figure she had a sense about these kinds of things and recognized presence before any witnessing ever took place.
This time Sister was right about her intuition because it moved past the front porch and roared in lieu of ringing the bell. For a few frozen seconds silence blanketed the room now thick with darkness. In this eerie quiet we waited for it to choose between devastation and deliverance. There in Sister’s arms, the trauma overcame me and I surrendered the stress of it all to an unconscious state. In the morning I would wake to find we endured both sacrifice and preservation. In the crisp dawn hours I would emerge from my pleasant state of blissful ignorance to hear three words uglier and crueler than any joke I’d imagined one of nature’s beasts could play.
Sister patted my cheeks with a bit of sting, slipped her hearty arm underneath the back of my neck and raised me to her, rocking me gently.
“Baby child, wake up,” she muttered softly and peered directly into my sleepy eyes until they abandoned their hibernation and accomplished the duty of focus.
“Ben is missing,” she explained.
The pain in Sister’s voice penetrated me like a knife. I could think only of her funny phrase “wind monster,” which suddenly was not only an indelible part of my vocabulary, but one whose otherwise cryptic, dormant meaning instantly sprouted to life.
wind monster
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I can recall the events of the next several minutes only like those of a dream, in bits and pieces that don’t seem to flow, but somehow maintain order enough to make sense. I remember feeling the concrete floor of the carport under my feet, then Sister’s firm grip just beneath my shoulders as she scurried me inside and down the back stairs. The electricity flickered and was gone. I remember a corner and how Sister covered me. Her mass hid me from what natural light would have allowed me to see until her back tired and her weight shifted, suddenly exposing me to seldom seen looks on familiar faces. Like snapshots they appeared out of darkness in the patches of light that flashed through the ground level window above us and vanished only to appear again in varied form. The strobe like effect made me dizzy, but, mesmerized, I could not avert my eyes. I strained them to make sense of the chaos outside. Nana’s lawn furniture danced in the sky. Tree branches and shingles whisked by as if they had somewhere to go. Pieces of everything speckled the view. The wind made such noise that it became something other than wind. It carried on like an obnoxious machine that I wanted desperately to unplug, but couldn’t. Its power was unstoppable. There was no cord to trace, no switch to manipulate, no closet to shove it in. It turned itself on and no one could drain its energy.
Sister had talked about this kind of storm. She called them wind monsters and said they lived inside thunderstorms but didn’t come out very often. I think she fibbed about that part because she was always watching the sky and telling us to mind the weather. I figure she had a sense about these kinds of things and recognized presence before any witnessing ever took place.
This time Sister was right about her intuition because it moved past the front porch and roared in lieu of ringing the bell. For a few frozen seconds silence blanketed the room now thick with darkness. In this eerie quiet we waited for it to choose between devastation and deliverance. There in Sister’s arms, the trauma overcame me and I surrendered the stress of it all to an unconscious state. In the morning I would wake to find we endured both sacrifice and preservation. In the crisp dawn hours I would emerge from my pleasant state of blissful ignorance to hear three words uglier and crueler than any joke I’d imagined one of nature’s beasts could play.
Sister patted my cheeks with a bit of sting, slipped her hearty arm underneath the back of my neck and raised me to her, rocking me gently.
“Baby child, wake up,” she muttered softly and peered directly into my sleepy eyes until they abandoned their hibernation and accomplished the duty of focus.
“Ben is missing,” she explained.
The pain in Sister’s voice penetrated me like a knife. I could think only of her funny phrase “wind monster,” which suddenly was not only an indelible part of my vocabulary, but one whose otherwise cryptic, dormant meaning instantly sprouted to life.
wind monster
continued
If you’ve ever hosted a yard sale, you know folks start following unwritten rules before the chickens get up. You know the flashlights will be shining at the edge of your driveway when you hit the garage door button. You yawn and stand there in your skivvies feeling hopeless. Long before the coffee has brewed (because you forgot to set the timer last night, you idiot), you recall the ad you ran in the local paper, and online, and placed at every intersection within a two-mile radius via posters – the same ads you carefully worded in a moment of fleeting enthusiasm to entice people to show up and dig through your discards.
Well, you better wake up because all of your ridiculous crap is still waiting to be dragged out into the yard. You meant to get up a few hours earlier, but when the alarm sounded, you slept through your regret. You pretended O’Dark-Thirty is not a sacred time in the realm of yard sale yahoo. So, like Wile E. Coyote, you stand there in the doorway, dumbfounded and paralyzed, a victim of your own foolish logic, just waiting for the anvil to fall from the sky.
To my great fortune, every time I attempted to clean house and garage, I had a yard sale wing man. I had Scout – the greatest yard sale dog in yard sale history. His method was simple but genius and guaranteed the sale of everything coated in mothball delight. That and boxes of dead batteries and computer cords and other questionable remains, and clothes that belonged in a 1980’s fashion vault, used bedding and towels, books that still smelled of my mom’s cigarettes, gaudy “what were you thinking” knickknacks, and always, at the end of the day, that one bin full of “please just take it.”
Once, Scout even sold another dog. My dear friend, Linda, witnessed it. She always knew when to pop the first cork because I would say, “Linda, pop a damn cork.” That’s how it started – the dog sale, I mean. We toasted to the littered yard and sat in our ratty lawn chairs situated in front of the fan in the garage. I barely had a chance to start whining about the heat when a shadow darted from my ugly hedges.
“Did you see that? What the heck was that?”
“I’m goin’ in,” Linda said and hopped up like we hadn’t just sat down for the last time before the madness started.
“Wait, it’s a dog!” I assured her. “Hey, it’s comin’ back this way!”
The dreaded Hedge Monster kept her distance. And then came around, and then kept her distance. She hovered at the end of the thick, boring shrubbery lining my long, misshapen driveway, her tail wagging but legs poised to run. I stood up to go toward her, and she put them in motion. She had the spirited gait of a pup and was lean like she wasn’t being offered a bowl or two a day. I went inside and filled one with some of Scout’s kibble. I walked to the end of the hedges and put it down along with a water bowl. I noticed the sun coming up and, like clockwork, my neighbor Donald Daniel “No, you can’t borrow that Don Danny” Duncan, coming up the street.
“Scout!” I yelled. “You’re on, buddy!”
He was so busy investigating the rancid smells strewn about the yard, he hadn’t noticed the pup or our first customer. Scout trotted over to greet Don Danny who kindly returned the gesture. And so commenced the yard sale. I put on my sales hat and followed, wondering which of Don Danny’s woes our small talk would encompass. Anything but the government ones involving uranium, I hoped.
“Mornin’ darlin’,” he said. “Got a bad back today, so can’t take nothin’ heavy. You got any mulch? Some fertilizer maybe? I got my nephew comin’ over to spruce up my plants ‘round the porch.”
I wrapped my arm around his like a prom date as I escorted him up the driveway. I glanced to my left and noticed the bowl I’d left for the pup was empty. While Don Danny treasure hunted, I refilled it and moved it up the driveway a bit, toward the garage.
Cars and vans and pick-ups came in and out, finding makeshift parking spots. Neighbor Sandra stopped by to remind us all about the Lord and neighbor Cindy snuck around the back and offered me weed. I declined all around, but I think Scout got the best of both worlds, which, in hindsight, only makes sense.
And that’s about how it went, except at the point I looked to Linda for a dose of sanity and saw the pup – the mysterious pup who had wandered so whimsically upon my yard sale – flat on her back reveling in belly rubs while Scout encouraged visitors to line right up for belly rub therapy. I could have stayed a bit longer in that moment than reality allowed.
“You got any extra rope?” “I’m lookin’ for ceramic pots.” “How much is this set of corncob holders?” “What size are these kitchen towels?” “Is this real plywood?” “I love the smell of turpentine.” “You got any firearms?” “I just like to talk to strangers.”
Scout and the pup took turns lapping water from the hose a young boy had ventured to turn on. Scout didn’t shut up about it and the pup rolled around in the pools that formed in the grass. The young boy played for a while as his mom carefully looked through boxes and his dad milled about. The dad struck up a jovial conversation with another visitor. They spoke in Spanish, and for the camaraderie they shared, I sure wish I’d learned their language. The young boy’s mom eyed him and the pup along with an “antique” shelf I had for sale. She spent an extra long time picking out simple household items, paid for them, and motioned to the boy it was time to go. Reluctantly, he turned off the spigot.
Visitors waned after the noon hour. Scout had collected ten phone numbers and me and Linda were ready for ten martinis. By three o’clock, traffic finally subsided to familiar neighborhood cars, and I sat with Linda in front of the fan, sweaty and far too tired to care about sales. All that was left to do was pray for whatever was left in the yard to magically disappear or catch on fire. Scout and the pup rested side by side, trying to benefit from any breeze that came their way. I had about given in to the idea that she would be staying when the young boy’s car pulled up to the curb again.
The pup perked up like she recognized the sound of the engine’s idle and headed right down toward the car. She stopped a ways before it and sat as if at attention. Scout trotted down to join her. The back seat door opened wide and a loud whistle sounded from inside – the kind like when you put two fingers in your mouth and bite down so the air pushes over your tongue allowing you to make a loud beckoning sound. The pup sprang into the backseat of the young boy’s car, and Scout settled to a resting position on the ground. He opened his mouth to gently pant, expressing a look of content. Linda and I watched from our front row seats in the garage.
The car idled for a minute more, the door still open. The young boy climbed out and walked up my yard toward me. I got up to meet him. He looked at the ground as he walked, and I saw he wore a serious face. We stood silent before one another. The young boy clearly had no time to spare. He pulled his right hand from his pocket and held it out to me, upward with his fingers curled, holding tight to something. I opened my eyes wide and gave him a little smile of encouragement and held my hand out in return. His round, boyish eyes watered to their brink, and he turned his hand over and placed it atop mine. Two quarters he let go in my hand and hurried off.
“Pop a damn cork, Linda!” I called out. She always knew when it was time.
fifty cent wanda
I juggle my unorganized laptop bag and daily grind gotta-haves and a grocery bag or two while trying to unlock the door. I gripe, but the quiet on the other side makes the jingle of my keys sting my insides, and I pause. I open the door and pretend not to notice. I wipe away tears or swallow them. Maybe there are some things time can’t mend. When that happens, all we can do is remember, and wait for the tales to come.
- For Scout
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“Mornin’ darlin’,” he said. “Got a bad back today, so can’t take nothin’ heavy. You got any mulch? Some fertilizer maybe? I got my nephew comin’ over to spruce up my plants ‘round the porch.”
I wrapped my arm around his like a prom date as I escorted him up the driveway. I glanced to my left and noticed the bowl I’d left for the pup was empty. While Don Danny treasure hunted, I refilled it and moved it up the driveway a bit, toward the garage.
Cars and vans and pick-ups came in and out, finding makeshift parking spots. Neighbor Sandra stopped by to remind us all about the Lord and neighbor Cindy snuck around the back and offered me weed. I declined all around, but I think Scout got the best of both worlds, which, in hindsight, only makes sense.
And that’s about how it went, except at the point I looked to Linda for a dose of sanity and saw the pup – the mysterious pup who had wandered so whimsically upon my yard sale – flat on her back reveling in belly rubs while Scout encouraged visitors to line right up for belly rub therapy. I could have stayed a bit longer in that moment than reality allowed.
“You got any extra rope?” “I’m lookin’ for ceramic pots.” “How much is this set of corncob holders?” “What size are these kitchen towels?” “Is this real plywood?” “I love the smell of turpentine.” “You got any firearms?” “I just like to talk to strangers.”
Scout and the pup took turns lapping water from the hose a young boy had ventured to turn on. Scout didn’t shut up about it and the pup rolled around in the pools that formed in the grass. The young boy played for a while as his mom carefully looked through boxes and his dad milled about. The dad struck up a jovial conversation with another visitor. They spoke in Spanish, and for the camaraderie they shared, I sure wish I’d learned their language. The young boy’s mom eyed him and the pup along with an “antique” shelf I had for sale. She spent an extra long time picking out simple household items, paid for them, and motioned to the boy it was time to go. Reluctantly, he turned off the spigot.
Visitors waned after the noon hour. Scout had collected ten phone numbers and me and Linda were ready for ten martinis. By three o’clock, traffic finally subsided to familiar neighborhood cars, and I sat with Linda in front of the fan, sweaty and far too tired to care about sales. All that was left to do was pray for whatever was left in the yard to magically disappear or catch on fire. Scout and the pup rested side by side, trying to benefit from any breeze that came their way. I had about given in to the idea that she would be staying when the young boy’s car pulled up to the curb again.
The pup perked up like she recognized the sound of the engine’s idle and headed right down toward the car. She stopped a ways before it and sat as if at attention. Scout trotted down to join her. The back seat door opened wide and a loud whistle sounded from inside – the kind like when you put two fingers in your mouth and bite down so the air pushes over your tongue allowing you to make a loud beckoning sound. The pup sprang into the backseat of the young boy’s car, and Scout settled to a resting position on the ground. He opened his mouth to gently pant, expressing a look of content. Linda and I watched from our front row seats in the garage.
The car idled for a minute more, the door still open. The young boy climbed out and walked up my yard toward me. I got up to meet him. He looked at the ground as he walked, and I saw he wore a serious face. We stood silent before one another. The young boy clearly had no time to spare. He pulled his right hand from his pocket and held it out to me, upward with his fingers curled, holding tight to something. I opened my eyes wide and gave him a little smile of encouragement and held my hand out in return. His round, boyish eyes watered to their brink, and he turned his hand over and placed it atop mine. Two quarters he let go in my hand and hurried off.
“Pop a damn cork, Linda!” I called out. She always knew when it was time.
fifty cent wanda
continued
There’s a fire in your love. And a calm. It shows in the way you embrace each other, as if you are at once experiencing something new and making up for something old. You have a togetherness worth everything. After all, anyone who’d fall from the sky for true love must surely leap so in acknowledgment of the times they’d tumble, in hopes of the places they’d fly.
There was a plane and a ring and a winter wedding with nothing but nature to decorate it. And as nature would have it, the bride wore a perfect veil of snowflakes in her hair, and the groom wore humble eyes frozen on her lovely face until their kiss brought cheer from family.
Your promises were made in a winter wonderland. And now a summer celebration with so many fans of your union took place with the Front Range in the background – how stunning and symbolic. Moises and Elise, may your life together be vast and abundant like Colorado’s open, blue skies, and may you traverse the hills and valleys together, always mindful and in celebration of the fire in your love. And the calm.
