Short #3: Caballeros

Soon it would be time. El Jefe would arrive in the courtyard and give instructions for the next job. Luis watched the gauchos mill around trying to mask their trepidation, anxiety, uneasiness in ways that were so familiar to him that he could point at each and tell what they were thinking, feeling. He knew. After so many years out here he'd lost count, he most definitely had seen and felt it all.

Standing a couple of yards away from the arched doorway of the church, Jose and Tito laughed raucously as they traded stories about the last piece they'd gotten. "Una vez que le mostro quien era el jefe... sin problemas!"
Santiago cupped his hand and watched the match's flame as it lit the end of his cigarette. In the darkening twilight the flame flickering in the breeze threw misshapen shadows across his face. Taking a deep drag, he wondered what sort of orders they would get this time. Last time they were told to go into an armed encampment and acquire all the palominos. El Jefe said he had promised a certain number to be delivered to a landowner over in MexiCali. Santiago wondered what it would be like to abandon this life, buy a plot, and raise horses as an honest man. Reaping the bounty of the fruits of his labor. "Menos dinero" he thought. Besides was he really ready to settle down? And with who? Settling down meant a wife and a family. And he had neither and no prospects for either on the horizon.
"Cuando hace el jefe de venir?" asked Little Jesus as he chewed on his nails. Not much was left to chew but he couldn't help himself. He clasped his hands behind his back and shuffled his feet in the loose dirt. Hearing the sound of hoof beats he looked up, to see the answer to his question. El Jefe and his armed contingency were riding into the courtyard, calling everyone to gather round. Little Jesus began biting his nails again.

Short #2: A woman

Is it wrong to think that anyone who eyes you up and down means you harm, whether personally or just because?
I heard the click of a door closing and looked up to see a middle age woman in a dusty rose colored crew neck shirt and khaki pants looking in my direction with displeasure written on her face. Her eyes, an indeterminate color behind the lenses of her glasses never changed expression as she looked away and hurried past me to cross the street. I stopped watching her and turned my attention back to the process of stowing gear on a hot day. From the other side of an open door wafted laughing conversation.
I wondered what had happened in this lady's day to paste that look on her face. Did it start when she woke up and saw her reflection in the mirror above the bathroom sink? "Who is this woman staring back at me? Where is the bloom I remember so clearly, what was that, yesterday? When did those lines at the corners of my eyes come?"
Or was it the daily routine of work that put that dissatisfied look there. Did her boss ask her to complete yet another task to add to the list of things impossible to accomplish in 8 hours? That would explain the papers she carried without the convenience of a briefcase or tote bag to hold them. I'd be pissed too.
I shut the seat of my scooter and just as easily ceased further reflections on the woman and her day.

Short #1: Street sign

Hmm. Another gray day. I can't tell anymore if the grayness comes from the light drizzle or from the constant belching of exhaust from the cars and buses and vans that inch by. I used to watch with attention the endless sea of humanity. Some would go in the buildings covered in gilt, indecipherable neon signs flashing. Folks hurrying silently by, intent on reaching their destinations. "Somewhere to be" "Had to get out of there" would float up to me on occasion.

Sometimes someone would lean up against me to talk on their phone before darting out into the street to cross to the other side. This time of day no one but me is idly watching passersby.
I've seen so much of the same. Today it's umbrellas and raincoats and hats and jackets and boots. Yesterday the same thing and the same thing the day before that.
Then the day darkens and the passersby slow down. There are fewer and fewer of them. One or two will slow down and stop for a moment to look up at me before continuing on.
Yeah. The excitement, the novelty is gone. It's all the same now. I couldn't tell you how long I've been here. Long enough though. Long enough to get gum stuck to me that has now become a part of my skin. Long enough to be kicked and dented and spray painted. Long enough for the glamour to wear off.
Sometimes I wonder what it'd be like to be knocked down. It happened to one of them on the other side of the street by a bus if I remember correctly. I think it was replaced. I couldn't tell from here if it was the same one or not. To go somewhere else, see something else...

Penny Dreadfuls

That was the last one. No more tales of intrigue, murder, and passion: the hero fends of evil to the delight of the heroine and with true and enduring love they ride off, sail, fuck (if they haven't been already in which case they can now stop skulking about on the down low) into the sunset. I actually got  teary-eyed as I read the denoument and wondered, as the tears rolled down my face, why the hell I was crying. I suppose it touched me.

I grew up on Penny Dreadfuls: Harlequin Romances, Barbara Cartland, Robert Ludlum, Jayne Anne Krentz. A good love story with an intricate plot involving mystery, the hero and/or heroine, both funny in their own fashion, harboring some dark secret and heading up some dashing rescue (the villian always, always, flushed with imagined victory, spilling their guts in the end) will always have a place in my literary affections.

But that's it. I turned 37 the other day. Some things that seem innocuous taken singularly, together scream out "I am no fool". And now I can't enjoy these lurid tales anymore. I suspected this time would come seeing as how I dragged my heels to read this last one. Naivete no longer holds my interest.

It's the Return

Thought I would never go back. i couldn't go back. It hurt too much. To see everything. The nothing that was left. How could it ever be the same? The New Orleans I loved was gone and there was nothing left for me there. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Finito.
But then I heard the Trashies were going to play. In New Orleans. For Halloween. So I went.
I was so afraid of what I would/wouldn't see... Feels the same. Smells the same. Sounds the same. The only remnants were the abandoned warehouses, the boarded up houses here and there. Oh yeah, and the official tags that hadnt been painted over.
I have to say I didn't go to my stomping grounds but that wasn't what coming back was about. It was the opportunity to experience it differently. Be a part of it in a different kind of way. To love love her again like the grown up woman I am.  It was like coming back into the fold after a long time away and I was still welcome. If only I could have remained. I won't wait for so long again to come back.

Falling

Earlier this week I fell out of a plane flying at 8500 feet. 30 seconds of free fall, 90 seconds of floating and then all too soon  the ants looked like people and my ass was kissing the ground.
How do I even begin to explain the thoughts and feelings I experienced as I scooted toward the hole in the wall of the plane and looked over the edge? It all went through my consciousness in split seconds: nervousness, fear, incredulity, impatience, but never once a second thought.   Sonja (my lifeline) started rocking and we fell out. I do believe I saw "OH SHIT" on my mind's marquee for a millisecond before I was grinning like an idiot (who does that as they fall to their possible death) looking at the fast approaching landscape.
Just as I was getting used to hurtling through the air, I felt a wrenching jerk and for a moment in my heightened state (no pun intended) I thought we had hit something. But how? What? Oh. Sonja opened the parachute.
And then we were floating. We spun around in circles and half circles, dipped and turned. Marvelous! I ignored the nausea I was feeling because I was enjoying myself WAY too much. And who wants to race their vomit to the ground?
We got closer and closer to our landing point and the disappointment I felt that it was almost over grew exponentially. Actually touching ground was the only anticlimactic portion of the entire experience. Where was the cheering and the ticker tape? Sonja unclipped me from the parachute we shared and the grin was back in full force. Wow! I hugged people, I danced a jig or two...
So. If you need someone to go with you skydiving think of me. I'll go. And I have coupons.

Ruminations on the finite

Ever since I got back from my scootouring jaunt down the coast I've been feeling less than optimistic and definitely not sanguine. Not to say life isn't still funny. I can laugh at any joke regardless of whether I get the punchline or not. However, my perspective has shifted. Is still shifting.
All that time alone in my helmet, I thought I got it down. The changing landscape was like a balm for my soul that I didnt know I needed until I felt it. The solitude of the coastal landscape far beneath me, the quiet weeps and whispers of redwoods, the scents of lavender and white sage, coming across the unexpected beached boat or Hogwart's Lane in the middle of what seems like no where... I thought all else is small, trivial in comparison to this. I could have ridden those twisting roads forever, my only worries being NOT to steer into the occasional oncoming vehicle and to keep my eye on the gas gauge.
Then it was over. The feeling of accomplishment stayed, real accomplishment because even up until the morning the journey began I wasnt sure I could do it. But the cocoon created by a shared experience disintegrated and I felt a degree of separation anxiety leaving all my comrades. It took me a week or two to return to what passes for normal in these parts. Or at least appear to.

I went to see some shows this summer. I could hardly contain my excitement leading up to seeing Duran Duran and then, a few weeks later, Depeche Mode. Neither of which I had ever seen live. I've been a fan for more than 20 years and was not disappointed.

I have, until recently, been vacillating between in a higher than normal degree of confusion and ambivelency. The biggest contributor being me. Some days I wanted to handle things a little differently that I had decided the day before. Feel differently, react differently. It got so when I took a step I wondered where I was going to land (if ever). Other days my motto was "Leave it alone" until further developments occurred. Even now, as I think about stuff, I still don't know what to think/do/feel. Be glad when all this is done.

Funny thing happened the other day. Someone said to me that they don't remember what my hair looked like before. Huh. It's only been a month since I had long hair.

I see how finite every experience is. It is true that nothing lasts forever. And perhaps that is a good thing. How else can all that an experience has taught be contemplated if it remains infinite?