The mouse never wavers, but waits at the door, hungry for
the touch of turmoil that will set his heart ablaze.
You are the mouse…. You are the door…. You are the turmoil.
Watch that you know whence it comes.
Author Archives
…the waiting begins…
After we hung up the phone, I lay in trance momentarily, to come back into my body once more, left for what seemed like an eternity. Where I had been had no relation to where my corporeal self floated, and there were other people out there in my living room. Gather it together…..
My good friend D was looking super casual and uninterested… His suit of armor, worn habitually and defensively. He and I had a long history which included much intimacy, yet he was one of those terrified of real intimacy, real love, and so a show of emotion was forbidden. Even curiosity meant he might care, and that was one thing he didn’t want to do or show. That was saved for the few he couldn’t reel in.
The classic Fear of Intimacy embodiment, and I must say I Wondered, as in Being in Wonder, at the Universe and Her sense of timing and humor, for D seldom came out and stayed with me, lovers or not, and to have Alcir call from Brasil on this day was pure and Brilliant Orchestration.
I re-entered my world, and shared a few of the best parts…. The Legion, of course…. And I remember his reaction at the poetry of his words:
“I Love You….and I always Deeed…. And I would not wan’ you to think something different.” I said it with my best Brasilian accent. When I got to:
“I’ve never forgotten….. It is not often that a man can find Peace…”, D feigned falling backwards, stabbing himself in the heart. He absolutely Got it, and it was a most satisfying moment. To make even more of this magical thing was something I could never have imagined, or even ask for.
D was such an enigma in my life, and for more years than I could have figured, and this was the whipped cream with a cherry on top, of an already overwhelmingly intoxicating dessert.
Many years passed, many phases gone through, so much belief in that first year, that he would return to me. I visualized being down at the wharf in a crowd…. smokey scene at the bar, some country western song playing, me behind my second pint, when there… across the room… that face… the voice… eyes locking on mine….
Or how ‘bout walking down Main Street midday, and suddenly from my right, a whistle…. Glance across the street… pause in mid glance… No…. Yes…. What?…. Blurrr……You get the idea. It was always a movie with him, and by now I’m sure you understand why the movie romance fantasies lingered. The magic in the timings, the comings and goings of him, of us. It was an encounter unlike any other… Iconic characters in a dance through time.
To this day, I know we will be together again, although I have let go of even the possibility of continuation in this life. It will be another, and perhaps then we will have our timing just a little more on spot. But the magnetic pull lingers, like the taste of bitter coffee, the cream coating tongue for the creamy softening, and to hold it there just a while longer.
By the time he had left the first time, the time when he sat in his truck and we stared so long… by that time I was catching every nuance in music I heard, learning about the role Brasil had played in World Beat and Jazz… falling in love with Djavan, Luis Bonfa, Nascimento, and of course Jobim.
Antonio Carlos Jobim, the untouchable, the delight of Brasil. They named their International Airport for him. The author of so many classics that have been heard for more than half a century… ones you would recognize after one phrase, after three notes, ones heard in elevators, and frequently background music even now, when the movie gets romantic and sexy.
He, Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto INVENTED the Bossa Nova back in the fifties.
So I was on a mission. Grok Brasil. Because I had never met a Brasilian before, and it wasn’t just about Him…. There was a wild and fierce spirit there that I knew I had to understand, because Brasil was something quite different from the world I’d known. I added the fantasy of someday visiting Brasil, and being shown it by Him.
When we had said Goodbye on that telephone line, our Last words were:
“Maybe I’ll see you in Rio…my Crazy Brasilian!”……… and he answered:
“Maybe I’ll see you in the States, my Looney American!”
There were moments where I felt I was Getting It. The Music of course was a big one. When I was in the Brasilian Music Trance, I was touching him, feeling his core self. My kids got so, whenever Brasilian music came on, they called it “Mom Music”.
But then things would happen…. Like when I was waitressing at a local place, where the Gualala River meets the Sea, with a wonderful view and interesting people.
I met people visiting the famous NorCal Coast, and the notorious Hwy 1, from all over the world.
And the staff always sent me out to deal with the tables full of ‘foreigners’.
I seemed to understand them more easily, as accents didn’t throw me, and sometimes I’d play with them, shooting the accents back. It was fun, and part of the theater of waiting tables.
I went out to a table of three, up and out of the way in the back, two men and a woman, and quickly realized I was waiting on Brasilians !!! oh I was so excited!
The sound of that accent sent me into apoplectic bliss… They were fun, playful, hilarious, and taught me how to order Beer in Brasil.
Later I realized they had the Carioca dialect…. That’s the name they call Brasilians from Rio …. Cariocas. And so, there I was, practicing “Dois Mais Cervezas, por favor” with my new friends…
“…for when you visit Rio”… they told me.
Turns out, this is a Basic Survival Skill…. Brasil drinks more beer than Any Other Country…! Ha!
An important part of Rio Portuguese, Carioca, is that you put sssshhhhh sounds in everywhere you can…. Doish maish cerveshas, pooor favooor …. Such a sensual and sexy language, that goes with the people… but in Rio they dial it up just a bit more, your tongue almost Tasting the sounds.
When they were leaving, they threw me a compliment that stayed with me always….
“We’ve beeen eeen the US… (they never say America…as Alcir said, We’re America too..) “We’ve been in the US for seven months, and you’re the First person we’ve met who is Like a Brasilian!”
Couldn’t get any better than that….
I must be making progress in my quest…
…until next time…
I remember the last time I’d seen him. I hadn’t heard from him in weeks, when suddenly the phone rang..
“Hello…?”
“Halllooo…. so…. I’m on my way….”
“What?…… where Are you?”
“I’m in Marysville……. I coould have gonn to Reno, but I’m cooming to see you…”
“Where’s Marysville?”
“About 200 miles away….”
“…so….so you’re saying you’ll be Here in four hours?”
“Yes……… So eeef you haf a Boyeefren, you bedder tell him to Leeeeef..”.
His voice got a little deeper when he said that…
“No…. no boyfriend… ok….. so…. guess I’ll see ya..”
“Yes…. bye….”
When he arrived, I remember little, except that the wait was endless, sitting in the upstairs window, leaning in with every car sound, until at last he was pulling in, his new silver truck announcing arrivals.
I recall his perusing my albums, and chuckling…. “Awful lot of Donovan albums here…” smug lips…
“Ya…. oh shut up!’…. laughter. There was always laughter with him.
I remember how exhausted he was, as he lay in my arms after love. Once more I felt like Isis, and my warrior had returned, albeit briefly and for unknown time and reasons, and he quickly slept, although restlessly.
That was unusual for him. Strange as it may seem, this man was the most peaceful bed companion.
Our lovemaking was briefer than usual, he doing his best to stay with me, and I remember his comment…”I won’t be happy til you orgasm…” and I truthfully said that I didn’t care. Just to have him there was all the orgasm my heart could take.
“I know I’m not heeere much, but I wan’ you to know…. You get the Best… eeets true…. you always get the Best.”
Next morning after coffee and breakfast, we drove around, and up Fish Rock he spotted a large boat, down a little road below. He stopped and ran over to get a closer look.
“Oh that’s a gooood one…. I wonder eeef eeet’s for sale…. I wan’ my boat. Do your vooodooo, I wan’ a meeelion doolarrs”, and I told him of the visualizations I had been doing for him. Visions of him on his beautiful sail boat, big grin, heading towards a magical island, money pouring down all over him from the sky, and him…. laughing his big glorious laugh…
“Oh, tha’s beautifulll” he smiled.
Soon he spoke of leaving and things calling to him. His plans were up in the air, once again nebulous, changing in unexpected ways, he was agitated, and when I got just a little upset, he looked at me sternly, and for a long time.
It was like at that moment, he just shut down, made his decision, and took me home.
“I thought you said you could stay another night…”
“No…. I haf to go… ” he trailed off.
Quickly he was loading the truck, as I sat on the steps watching. My sadness was overwhelming, and left me unable to talk about anything meaningful. He was already gone to me.
His truck started up, and we eyelocked. Endless time swirls passed between us, as we both just sat there, staring, taking in eachother for perhaps the last time.
At last he turned off the truck, got out, walked over, and as I sat immobilized, he planted a long long hard pressing kiss that made my face surrender backwards in a swoon, and lasted forever. A desperate goodbye through lip talk that stayed with me, full of sadness and resolve.
As the truck pulled away and grew smaller, finally vanishing out the driveway, I sat stunned, really groking the last 24 hours, and knowing that he had slipped through my fingers, perhaps forever, and yet he would never leave my soul.
So now, once again and years later, I held him for a timeless moment; his voice was distant, yet his presence strong, and I sensed a softening, an effect that had washed over him in the brief, intense two years that had transpired. I couldn’t even imagine what he’d gone through, and it was only many years later in Brasil that he began to share with me some of the things that had transpired.
So there I am, lying on the pantry floor, cold I couldn’t feel, pasta I couldn’t see, every nerve straining to absorb every molecule of him that slipped through the wires.
“So….” he began again… “I wan’ to coomm back to the states, when they let me leeeff..”
“When will that be?”, my heart racing at the mere thought of the possibility of the maybe someday…
“Oh, in a year or so, things might be better…”
I breathed deeply, taking it all in. There was no time for reflection now; all focus was intensely on the Now, and later I would replay the conversation as best I could. I felt myself straining to reach him, glean any morsel that was gleanable at this foggy distance.
“I’ve never forgotten”, he repeated once again.
and then he said something that went through me like a blade of fire, branding my solar plexis, the recording in my head playing over and over again, as I saved it for posterity.
“I’ve never forgotten….” … there was a long pregnant pause here……
“…..It is not often that a man can find Peace…………”
…awakening…
The phone rang. Busy making dinner, Lily answered for me, while I obliviously continued my quest for dinner.
“Mom! some lady’s on the phone, and she says she has a Collect Call from Brasil…”…she shrugged…
Oh great, I thought. Some friend of mine is messing with me… they’re so sick of hearing about Mr Brasil, and now they’re giving me grief….
“Here hon, give it to me…” (damn…)… “Hello?….”
“Halllooo? Yez, iee haf a collect call from Alcir… yooo doo not know sumone named Alcir?” came the dusky, accent laden voice.
“Uh………yeeessss….. I slowly pulled from my mouth, while brain went into permafreeze…. silent moments passed…..
“Hallloooo? Eeeeez Theeees Reeely Yooo?” came that old familiar dark deep voice, that voice that seemed to go right to my nether regions…
I took a deep breath, and in my confusion, suddenly everything stopped. I had a house guest… one of my absolute favorite friends, playmates, collaborator, D I shall call him, and he and his buddy were up from the Bay Area to find large driftwood for his new store in the city… and dinner, D, Lily, time…. all became temporarily irrelevant.
“Yessss..???” which ended in a question, because there was no where else for me to go with this. I hadn’t seen or heard from him in Two years, and frankly, knowing him as I did, I found myself at times wondering if he was even alive.
Oddly enough, I had just gotten a Card back, return to sender, no such animal, that I had sent to Tahoe weeks ago, in desperation. My mind had been plagued with terrible wondering, I couldn’t stop thinking of him, and I had written something simple, direct inside:
“Come Back….. At Least let me know you are Alive”… It had a tender print of Isis holding a wounded Osiris on the front. I still have it.
Weeks had passed, and then there it was in the mail… oh no… I may never know…
That was but Days ago… and Now…? how can this be?? I excused myself to the pantry. I needed isolation, focus, clarity, a brain please. Shake brain like Snow Globe…. let dust settle….
“Where Are you?” I semi stammered.
“In Brasil… tonight there hass been many celebrations, with many friends and family from long ago …I Had to come back. Eeeets my contree…” he trailed off.
Long ago, he had left Brasil, run actually, from an inevitable jail sentence, perhaps death… and his Grandfather had given him money… he’d bought a 30 foot boat, and sailed away, alone, around the Horn all by himself… he was maybe 20…
“I was a Revolutionary. I robbed banks to finance the Revolution. An’ then a coople of peeeple got Keeeeled, an I had to leeeef.”
That was over ten years ago, ten years he’d spent in Norway, Hawaii, and finally, and mostly, the West Coast. He’d acclimated quickly, Loved it.
“What … where ..have …you been?…”…( so he just Got there? tonite?)…
“I waz een the French Foreign Legion” he told me. OK… another brain freeze.
“What??? what was it like?”
“Hell… Eeeet waz Hell. But I got out, an came back. ”
“What …. like what do you mean?”
“oh…. like walking for twenty miles with a hundred pounds on yer back, an eeef you fall down, they Keeeek you…”
“How did you get out?” I asked, for I’d seen enough about the Legion to know that once you join, you give up all rights, all contracts, all everything, for Seven Years. How could this man…?”
“Oh… they deedn’t know whaat too doo weeth me for a while… All three of them had mee in a rooom for a few hours…” He referred to his double citizenship… Brasil, US (he’d been born in Honolulu while his parents were traveling) and I guess France and the Legion. I fantasized him escaping, running through the jungle, dodging bullets… big grin on his face…
“I Love You” he breathed softly…
“What..?” I squeeked, breath gone. He’d never said that, ever.
Once I had said that to him, in the midst of love, and he busted out
“Nooooo, don’ sayee thaaat. Why, because we have good orgasms? Nooo…don’ saayee thaat.” It was like an allergic reaction…
“Could you say that again please…Words, I want to hear words…” I coughed.
“I Love You…. an I Alwaays Deeeed, an I woould not wan you to theeeenk somtheeen deeferent.”
Breathe, Carol, breathe.
“I’ve never forgotten”
“..and I’ve never forgotten…”…
We stood there… half a world apart… and it was alive, still alive. I didn’t care how much it was costing, how long, nothing…
“I’m sorry for calling collect,” he said…”I’ll make it up to you when I see you.”
My knees went weak. By now I was lying on the bare floor of that narrow pantry, staring up unseeing, at shelves of canned beans and pasta.
…down the rabbit hole…
There’s something about this condition, this reality that we call Reality, where you think you’re going to do something, to work on something or other, and then find yourself falling down this Rabbit Hole into cul de sac after sac, and end up forgetting what it was that started the journey to begin with…
Case in Point, as they say: I have spent a long and busy day, crossing thing after thing off of my list. I love lists, have I told you that? Especially Love crossing off things, to the point of, upon completion of some task, and finding that I never listed it to begin with, I have been known to Write it on the list, just so I can cross it off…
At any rate, so my list is sorta completed for the day, my brain and body is sure of it, and I line up some cool Netflix film to nestle down in to. Love those movies in bed…
Shutting off the lights, I turn on the heater…. One of those super efficient ones that have a little glowy thing that makes you hold your hands to the fire that your brain still can’t accept is not real, and I notice it’s really making a lot of noice. Not clanky clangy sort of noise, just too much. I also smell a little something, like burning hair or furry dust bunnies.
I remember a couple winters ago, when mine made a big nasty smell that combined the above with a touch of electrical, and I had to replace the heater-motor thingy.
So, me thinks to meself…. Hmmm, best turn it off and look at the backside. And sure enough, there’s enough dust clinging to that filter, it would choke a horse… well, maybe a rat. Anyway, I can see it’s time to wipe and shake and bang that puppy, so it can do it’s job. Then I notice that the inside that I can now see is positively snowed in with dust, dog hair and spider webs. Hmmmm this could be more serious than first ventured.
Ok, big brave me am Goin In. Get those screwdrivers, and scalpels, and move in for the sponge and scrape phase.
Hmmmm…. I have the phillips in the correct size, after pawing through my ‘tools’ drawer, but as I begin the process of dropping out the motor, I notice that every other screw is one of those that requires one of those little bent wire jobbies they call an Allen Wrench. Probably because some guy named Allen decided that we all needed another set of wrenches.
Then I remember that the last time I went in for the kill, I ended up going to the Ace is The Place place, to at last find the correct size. It cost a quarter, but it took 45 minutes.
Ok…so that means it’s gotta be here somewhere.
Back to the ‘tools’ drawer, which sports somewhere near a thousand things, from art supplies (they’re tools!) to blades for the variety of cutting dealies I own, to many sizes of screwdrivers, a small hammer, some very old hard Sculpey, pens that don’t work, measuring devices, screws with something sticky on them…..
I paw around for a while, being careful to avoid those cutting dealies…. I finally decide to retrieve my Head Lamp, which is always in the right corner of my underwear drawer, just in case the lights go out. It’s not there, and I remember I was using it last night to go outside and check on the animals I’m caring for right now.
Hmmmm… where would I have put it this time? Finally I find it near the fish bowls, and am glad to see it has fresh batteries. Back to the ‘tools’ drawer. Paw Paw Dig Shuffle…..
I find one too small, and one too big. Beginning to feel like Goldilocks here, and I wonder where that one they call Just Right might be, and starting to think I’m getting lost in a Fairy Tale Book with dyslexia.
I think…. Where would I have Logically put it? A smart person would have Duct Taped it to the undercarriage of that heater, but Nooooo….
Meanwhile, Geeee, I Really need to clean out this drawer. Well, I don’t really need that… and this is all dried up… and I have three of these….. and if I put all these together in this little box…… oh No!… here I go down the Rabbit Hole….. Heeeellllppppp Meeeeee…..
Back on track, Carol, back on track…….. it’s Finding Just Right Allen Wrench now….
Finally find it in one of the teeny tiny boxes of collections of teeny tiny screw drivers. Oh god oh god oh god….. yes! Your loss, Helpful Hardware Man.
Back to the heater. Unplug it…. I’m so smart,…. And Go In.
Now I see how completely disgustingly Full this thing is with the finest baby powdery dust, and I go for my handy little hand vac… a Scorpion! Trouble is, the Scorpion is full, as it only holds about an ounce of dust, and there’s clearly 2 in there.
Ok, open up the insect…. Nope, scorpions are not Insects, as I should clearly know, being a Scorpio…. They are in the Spider family, Arachnids! Did you know that?
So I bang and I wipe, and it take it outside and do it somemore. Dog hair! That boy is so beautiful, but does he ever have the Hair! I need to brush him more…. Where is that brush that works so good….? Oh no! down the rabbit hole I almost tumble again… oh, and the catch on the scorpion door lock is just slightly sprung, so I work on that for a while.
Back to the heater, which lies spreadeagle, lacking only stirrups holding it down…
Goin in for the clean up….where’s the haz mat suit? There’s dust all over the floor now, and I think about my other vacuum that I’ll need to clean up from this vacuum…. but its bag is full too…
I get a stiff paintbrush, and begin to dust it down, finding several tools and a bit of creativity is needed to drag out the leavings of 6 months in this little cave of mine. The spider webs are particularly difficult, and these teeny tiny pointy things are coming in handy. Vac vac vac….dust dust dust….wipe wipe wipe….
Well, might as well clean the outside, long as I’m here, it’s looking a little used, and not well. I can see wag marks from the dogs’ tails, and god I never noticed how dusty it was when you have it upside down. I go for the Eco-cool spray cleaner made of Tea Tree Oil, and find it nearly empty. Go find the Eco-cool cleaner, add water, pour in, ready to spray. The outside begins to look smooth and black once more, and I can see that faux fire much better now, through windows that are now transparent.
Finally I reach a place where the return is not worth the investment, and so I stop, and I plug it in, turn it on, and after a small amount of complaints, it at last sounds relatively normal.
Put away screw driver, find good place for that Allen Wrench where I’ll find it a little faster next time, tucking it in a little plastic bag with Papa wrench and Baby Wrench.
Vac up the floor with the Scorpion, which is now full again, but I’ll leave it for next time.
Ahhhhh……Warming up now, as I wonder if this what they call Adult Onset ADD…
And now ……….uh……what was I going to do?
…out out damned spot…
Back in the fifties in Los Angeles, when TV was a new and novel thing, there was a live program…everything was live then…in the afternoons, called Handy Hints.
There was this Betty Ferness type in apron, and high heels of course…. didn’t everyone wear high heels in the kitchen? …. and she offered up little treasures for the little housewife. Sort of a primeval Martha.
Well, I feel like starting a new show or column, because I just found the most Awesome Handy Hint, something that Everyone will use one day or another… or this very day. Ready?….
My daughter and her family are gone just now, and I am housesitting, taking care of her animals, and sometimes spending time in the house, as it is cozy and provides a rich environment for me to enjoy, that I don’t have in my little nest.
I was working on a bunch of large fabrics, tablecloths, pillows and afghans, to sell in my Etsy store on line. I was using the table to iron them on, very handy, and the next day as I removed the many layers of fabrics I had used as a ironing pad, and also to protect the table…. Much to my Horror, there was a big White area that I had created with the steam iron! I mean Big. I mean Giant Family Sized Pizza Big.
Oh Goddess, she was going to Kill me. I might as well go back to Brasil, because this is her new table, and she Loves it.
I tried oiling it, thinking the heat had somehow bleached or dried it out. I thought about the different ways I paint and stain things that I repair and sell. I thought about a lot of things, but mostly how she was going to kill me.
I thought about Google. Oh God bless Goodle. The Google Gods were there with me that day, and I will now share one of the more Amazing Handy Hints ever.
The whiteness is from the moisture trapped under the finish. The trick is to drive out the moisture with heat. They suggested a hair dryer, which I tried for a while. A very long while. Then I tried the other suggestion….. an Iron! Funny, huh? Fight fire with Fire!
No steam, of course, but cover with a cloth…. I used a clean dish towel, not terry, but smooth and thick…..and iron on MEDIUM, below the steam setting.
At first I went back and forth. Later I found that I could leave the iron on the area for up to 10 seconds at a time. It took quite a bit of time, because of the size, but although at first I was not believing it was working, slowly shade by shade the stain faded, and…..VOILA! it Works!!!
So go to that old white moisture mark on that precious wood something-or-other, and be prepared to be amazed.
It’s like MAGIC!
…to a tail…
It must be wonderful to have a tail…
to issue comments from the back of me…
and wave away irritation.
To send tidings of trust….
and messages of wisdom to the stars.
…the cove….
When I think about the Glam House, I remember Good Times. It was on the Ridge, part of what was called ‘The Banana Belt’ around that NorCal area. Micro climates were common, and that area had better weather, warmer temps, happier gardens, and in general also had higher prices. I felt privileged to live there, and so deeply wished I was in the position to buy. But that was not to be the case.
I asked both my Brasilian, who had property in Tahoe, and also another long term friend, sometime lover, and business partner, and frankly if either had agreed to come up with the down…$50 thou… they could have turned it in five years and we all would have made a bundle…. Five years later it sold for a half Mill…. and later the whole banana.
The asking price at the time I lived there was under 200, more like180, but they needed a big down. Just like my Point Arena ‘boat house’ creation. Desperate times, for some reason. Those who hung in there made a bundle later.
Those who used to sell cosmic crystals, then started studying Massage,
and then moved on to Real Estate…
So meanwhile, I just Loved the place to death. And that Brasilian, although I must admit I didn’t see much of him, when I did, it was always The Best, and sort of like a movie…How much was Him….How much was Me? and does it really even matter?
One day he was in town, and drove up in a new car. He loved this new car, as it was a classic Big Fat Thunderbird…. What we referred to in the islands as a Huna Car… short for Kahuna…. Those powerful shaman of Polynesian persuasion. Big and Cool and fun.
He drove it up on the lawn, got out the hose, and proceeded to give it a bath, as I watched from upstairs, and put on Sade….
When I went to the Faire on the weekends, he came and watched my house. It was fun knowing he’d been there looking around and touching things, thinking of me.
One afternoon, Lil …then about 9….and I went down to the cove, about the time the divers came in… and believe me, there were women who showed up every afternoon just for that event. I remember my son hearing about that, and about one particular one who came regularly, and he wondered if it was me, his mom, who was one of those women he’d heard about who waited to greet the divers, because they, indeed, were a special breed of man.… But no, it wasn’t me, although it turned out to be someone rather close to the family…
Remember the reality show… ‘The Most Dangerous Catch”…? Well, Alcir had done a couple seasons up there in the frozen seas…. Working the King Crab Boats. He loved it, craved the excitement and the danger.
So one afternoon, Lil and I went down to the cove to have some fish and chips. Now the cove was an experience in itself, and let me briefly describe the scene. This place had been there forever, down a winding road leading to the cove, which is one of the oldest coves on the northern California coast… one of the few safe harbors for hundreds, maybe more, years… lots of history, lots of ghosts.
When friends came to visit, one place to take them was there, for that was the true old point arena. It was a ramshackled place, run by an older Greek woman, with the numbers on her arm. Sophie was tough, and could run out the biggest and the drunkest, all Four Foot Ten of her. Late at night, if she was in the mood, and you were lucky, she’d put on a Greek tune on the box, get out her hanky, and do the dance with one of the locals. What a show.
The regulars, unwashed and already into their cups, sliding off their barstools, the fishermen, telling tales, and into their cups, and the locals, who consisted of old hippies, descendants of old families, and spawn of combinations of all. Always different, always the same…
So we are there ordering the fish and chips, which actually were quite good, and quite fresh… and along comes Mr Brasil… he’s all up from being out on his favorite location, and enduring adventures, and he briefly sits down, and does the jolly talkative nervous chatter. I was feeling quite calm, quite yummy actually, and just did a lot of smiling. He left rather quickly, and I felt sorta sad, realizing that he was nervous. He didn’t quite know where he fit yet…
Then a while later, as we went out to view the view… so sweet, gotta tell ya…. Of the old pier and the rocks, the surf rolling softly along the shore… and there was big Alcir.
“So… would you like me to find you some deeener?”
How cute is that? My warrior going out to catch our dinner….
So he did just that. He sat me up on the hood of his big Huna Car, stereo pumping rock’n’roll thru the hood and into my netherplaces, whilst he put on his fins and mask, wet suit and knife, and proceeded to walk out into that frigid water and down into the deep.
The Primal Feels were enormous. He had a sort of floating basket, and I saw him come up, and go down…. Come up and go down. It didn’t take him long to get his limit…
Soon he was done, and the warrior in his suit of armor marched up to show me his winnings. Four Abalones and a couple Perch… which he called “Porch”….
“So”, he began…”I could come over later, and show you how we cook these theeeengs een my coentry”
“Oh, OK… great” I answered, giving my best blase.
Another time, the divers had been out en mass, and there he was, displaying his wares, out in the parking lot, with the rest of the fellows…
I still felt shy, like some little Japanese girl with a fan or something, eyes downcast, smiling to myself, feeling that I’d gotten my own good catch…
And as he turned over the Abs and other fare, he began peeling off his wetsuit…. A sexual dance unto itself….and talking about his day. I couldn’t help but be caught up in the display of not yet dead creatures. I had never seen an abalone still alive, although I’d eaten my share.
As I stroked their smooth and undulating Snaily selves, still alive and glistening with colors and slime, I was feeling their sad surrender to their fate. They were quite beautiful, and I said so…
“Oh, they’re so beautiful…” and tears almost welled up…
“What are you doing? Hypnotizing them, before I Keeeel them?” the word Keeel was emphasized with teeth and nuance.
“Yes, sort of…” I said, and he smiled his best Pirate grin.
It was odd. I loved his Pirate, and he loved my Hippie.
…a choice…
…Either you can slit your throat,
or you can get your shit together.
…for laura….a morpho butterfly tray…
So Here is a lovely example of the Morpho Butterfly Tray that I have not only referred to, but gone to great extremes to collect and delight in…
Those of you who care, you will be happy to know that….
I HAVE ENTERED THE KING TUT’S TOMB OF MY PAST TODAY….. and have located some delicate delectibles of my past Journals… as well as Photographs and Memoirs…. oh my! I shall deliver ….and soon…!
Meanwhile…..This type of tray was produced in Brasil in the twenties, thirties and forties. In the fifities and sixties, they continued, but by the late sixties, the Morpho Butterfly was protected, and no longer were these gorgeous but doubtfully moral objects.
notesfromthelovewars 