My husband is the sexiest man alive


My husband and I met in college. I was energetically pursuing my degree and he had taken up residence in the cafeteria, energetically pursuing a world record in coffee drinking. He would speak ex cathedra from his monobloc chair on the evils of Reaganomics, British motorcycles and the poetry of Pink Floyd. He smoked like an old Dodge with bad exhaust. Dressed in his prized American made black leather jacket and smelling deliciously of Aqua Velva, this guy was mouthy, cocksure and funny as hell.

He had a lopsided smile that managed to be silly and seductive all at the same time. When he smiled at you, you felt like the prettiest girl in the world and wanted very much to have babies with him. His blue eyes shone like Lake Michigan after a storm. 

In a time when you were one or the other, Albert was both. Or neither. He's a gear head philosopher. A Catholic liberal. A progressive anachronism. His favorite books were Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, The Communist Manifesto, The Complete Joy of Homebrewing and Animal Farm. 

He can repair anything, from our daughter's necklace to our son's Firebird. All while deconstructing the Weimar Republic. Or some obscure part of a Royal Enfield. He loves Polish food, Armenia, IPA, women of every color, stray cats and babies. He's not ashamed to cry, laugh and hug his boys. 

He goes to confession every week and really does try to swear less afterward. He's as rambunctious as a Michigan thunderstorm and his anger blows over about as quickly. He reads stories to the kids, decorates with cheesy streamers for each birthday, is ruthless at Battleship, tells every he loves them every day, is kind to everyone and has even been known to paint his little daughter's toenails. 

 37 years, six babies, including two stillborn daughters and 11 grandkids later his smile still charms and the baby blues still shine. He still has that child-like joie-de-vivre. The hair is a little more silver but he still works 12-hour nights and makes me coffee every morning. 

This man and I have been up more steep hills and down into more deep valleys than I could count or rename. I'm sure there are more. And we haven't even gotten started traveling! So the rest of the world has yet to meet us! I'm glad indeed to have such a sexy guy to go through life with. Ad Infinitum et Aeternum, lover boy.

The Little Girl at the Window

 a chubby little girl with a permanent squint that looks like a scowl

that's what I see in my kiddie pics

what was I thinking behind that funny, awkward face?

I don't remember


I don't recall a bedroom. Or bed.

What was the wallpaper like? 

I lived in so many places. 

38 before 20, if I counted them all


I can't visualize a dinner table 

except at the grama-grampa house

There are few doing-stuff together memories 

I played alone a lot 


I wandered around cities alone

at 6

I was a latchkey before it was a thing

I was sick alone


I never called any place "my" home

It was always dad's or mom's 

And later stepmom's or stepdad's 

I "lived with" them, I said


I slept on their couches

On makeshift beds with someone else's pillow

On unheated porches

in the baby's room 


toys came and went with no warning

One day they were there 

and the next, they were gone

sold, I think. I never asked. 


food was thin on the ground

vitamins for breakfast  

a power bar for lunch and salad for supper 

I have stolen food before


Chores were never in short supply

lists and lists for me to do

no one else 

just me


I've always felt outside

looking in other families' homes

my little face pressed to the window

steaming up the glass with my breath


Always seeing  but never really seen

till someone needed something 

a job done or a target

Apart but not a part


I never felt anything about it

I'm told I looked miserable

at family gatherings

I can't remember those either


I didn't know it was wrong

this nothing having but work

I know now it was.

At least, I think I do.


I still don't feel it's wrong

for me anyway

for others it would be

For my kids, hell yes


They had beds and toys 

some are still in the basement

and memories

happy and a few sad


I still cook oversized meals

even though they've flown

I treasure their drawings

and stuffed animals


I'm feeding the little girl at the window

I gave her a bed and some toys

She has a home

She can call it hers


She still frosts up the glass

when she forgets she can come in

or is afraid to

or locks herself out


She still stays small 

But she's staying longer

and smiling more

and remembering


Amen





Just a wave upon the sand?

What do you do when someone you didn't know, but yet you did, dies?

One of my four current favorite authors, in whose books I've dwelt in for hours and days on end, passed.

I was following his blog and saw he was ill. The C word. Plus early pre-vax Covid. I waited for new books. Like e selfish child who expects papa to play on his deathbed. 

I guess you can't write much when you are sick.
Then I got ill and busy with other series. Like a friend you lose track of (Forget) while making new. 

Then I found the last book I'd been too cheap to buy, at the library. And I checked his blog and he was dead. 

He was funny. He cared about pandemics and comics and London. and people who suffered in pandemics. Kept us posted on Covid in London. 

I feel that somehow, his detectives Bryant & May (not the matches which I guess were a brand in England) should honor their creators passing. 

Like Holmes and Poirot, Alleyn.and Wimsey, Arthur Bryant and John May must have a life beyond their writers. 

I wish I could have sent a tribute to the funeral. Or told his husband I was sorry. And thank you for it all. 

For the underground rivers and Carnaby Street and Mr. Punch and old St Pancras and the Peculiar Crimes Unit, which should have existed, thanks. 

Someday I will get to London. And most of the quirky bits, and much of the important will have come from Bryant and May and Meera and Janice and Raymond and Crippen and Fowler. 

Eternal rest, Christopher Fowler (1953-2023, in the 69 club with Bowie and Rickman and Petty)




Campfire music and lightning bugs or fireflies


 (part two on my ode to the humble, yet gestalt campfire)


Busy, buzzy, ringy-dinging

shouting, scolding, swearing, slinging

Bashing, dashing, banging, crashing

Rushing feet and teeth gnashing 


What a weird, wild wacky

wonky, work-a-day world: 

the horror show called grownup

Where everyone races but no one wins


Mr. Grinch was framed

It wasn't Christmas he minded 

But the NOISE NOISE NOISE

Assaulting ears and peace of mind 


Come away from the roar

the gardinkers and Tom-tookers

the hustle and hassle

the tussle and worry-hurry


Come to the big lake

on a Michigan summer night

hear soft smooth soul fixing sounds

of earth and wind and fire


Campfire kindling trackle, crackles

Birch wood sizzle-hissle whistles

Swallows singing swan songs

Wakey bats echolocating bugs


sensual sklush of lake-surf surge

Sklish-swish, moan-groan wind

Nearing thunder crumble crunching

Misty, moisty crickle-trickle rain 


And we by the campfire sit

Loathe to go in and end the night

Companionably conversing 

on nothing and everything


Where the most stressful 

topic for evening discussion

is whether they are called

lightning bugs or fireflies


Of campfires and marshmallows on a Michigan summer night

Michigan midsummer's eve

Of campfires and pine smoke

And flimsy folding chairs 

Dad rescued from a junk pile


Roasting marshmallow on branches

because mom is too cheap 

to spring for sticks or metal forks

Spiky, unsanitary and single use


But good for mass toasting

and beating of brothers 

and launching fiery sticky projectiles

for no particular reason


Wielding flaming marshmallow torches

Like maniacal villagers raising hue and cry

scaring shrieking little siblings

and getting scolded for waste


On toasting styles, to plunge or not to plunge?

coveting Grama's patient golden perfection

but usually too lazy to slow roast

incinerating in one fell swoop


Burning fingers and tongue

on ash-dropped incendiaries

Never knowing which is best

Blackened crunchy shell or gooey white innards


On recipes, S'mores sometimes

just marshmallows mostly

mom is also too cheap for

whole dollar Hershey bars


Stubborn marshmallow prints on hands

resist scrub, remain till Sunday morning

Surreptitiously sucking fingers in church, 

Reveling in campfire Saturday night 


Epilogue:


The poet lacks the lexicon

to convey just how magnificent 

the universe of memories made 

on a Michigan campfire night









The Tao of Grama: a belated eulogy


My grandmother had more common sense than anyone I've ever known or will ever know. Pragmatis in extremis, you might say. And was she proud of it. As well she should be. I'm only just beginning to realize how much she has influenced me and how positive was that influence. 

It didn't always seem so. She used to say "I speak my mind" To a lot of people that translated to judgemental, unfeeling, harsh, critical. She's been referred to as an old bat or similar appellative beginning with b. Folks would say, "oh Marilisa, your grandpa's so wonderful, nice, giving, caring and your grandma... (cricket cricket as they hunted for words). 

She acknowledged all that with a laugh and a shrug. I think she actually liked her mouthy, badass reputation. She never defended herself or why she said what she said and she never backed down. And she never willingly hurt anyone.

She didn't candy-coat, was never fake-sweet but also not self-righteous, smug nor hypocritical. She never shot her mouth off just to hear herself talk. And she had precious little time for those who did. She was never gratuitously cruel. Just matter of fact. And I have learned over the years that she was usually right. 

We used to butt heads regularly. She, the "dyed in the wool" (her words) "trust no one" Republican and me the liberal, "feel sorry for everyone" Democrat. But we loved the heck out of each other. I like to think she even respected me. I know I sure as hell did her. It just took me awhile to realize how much. 

Being polar opposites, you would think that I would be the first to fault grandma when she criticized this or that. And sometimes I did if I thought she was being unfair. But the funny thing is she rarely ever was. As I look back I cannot recall a single bigoted, prejudiced or even generalized statement. She simply spoke what she observed and she usually said what everyone else was thinking but didn't have the balls to say.

Grandpa used to chide her for lack of tolerance. I don't think it was intolerance so much as impenetrable practicality. She just didn't suffer foolish behavior gladly. Where Grandpa and I would give second, third, 26th (too many) chances, she would say "leopards don't change their spots." And invariably she would be right. 

When she predicted that so and so would repeat the same error, he usually did. When she said my little brother would never stay the night at their house, because he always cried to go home once he got there, the family behaved as if she was the bad guy. Ultimately, he never did stay the night and fussed until Grampa took him home... every time. He saw a way to drive a rift between the adults and being a kid he seized on it. But God forbid Gram call him out or suggest maybe they NOT cater to him. 

So what we saw as nihilistic negativity, I now see was just realism. She did not set herself up for disappointment and did not want me to either. Actually, I now realize,  it sets the other person up for failure, expecting them to do things they are uncapable of or unwilling to do. And it gives them weird, unhealthy power over others  (see, Grandma, I finally get it).

Funnily enough, her pragmatism is hailed by 12-step groups as being very mentally healthy. Grandpa's and my rabid optimism and waiting for spot change, not so much. It's called acceptance of what is and St Francis is thumbs-upping you, Grandma

It's not that people can't change and she'd be the first to admit this. It's that they aren't going to simply by you clicking your heels together and waiting to go back to Kansas. Actually you have nothing to do with them changing. You can't be living your life around the hope that they will.

I'll even go so far as to say (listen up, Grandma you're going to love this) that you really shouldn't worry or care if people change. Blessed are they who expect nothing for they shall not be disappointed. Spending too much time obsessively trying to control it, is self-defeating and not good for you or the other person. Doing things to produce a desired result in others is kind of passive aggressive and sick.  Better to let go and live your life as is best for you. Can Grama get an amen? 

So Grandma you've been gone 15 years. And virtually no one remembers you. You didn't do anything of note. But in a way you did everything for me. You inspired me to stand for things so I wouldn't fall for anything. You empowered me to trust my instincts and have faith that I could do things I needed and wanted to do. 

Maybe time has gilded my memory. You probably weren't as perfect as I remember. You did upset me so sometimes.  But then I upset me a lot more and I'm KNOW I upset you.  But you definitely weren't the Gorgon you pretended to be either.

You weren't given to raving praise but you were honestly proud of my meager achievements and did not hesitate to show it. I remember when I gave the valediction at the Honor society banquet, how you came running over to place a gold necklace around my neck. Right in front of everybody like you wanted to make a big splash of me. That felt really good. 

I don't think I said thank you as much as I should have. I hope and think you know that I loved you and love you still. I am proud to have been one of the few people who really knew you. Miss you. 😘 Marilisa


Sandlot Sundials


Sunday at the grama grampa house

Was not complete without a walk

To the beach via Whitey's Wood

And a sandlot sundial


What is a sandlot sundial?

It is a not so fancy timekeeping piece

That we made with two sticks

To mark our time in the woods


Grandpa and I would walk to the Big Lake

(Lake Michigan) every week

In summer we would swim 

in Winter just walk


Grandma never joined us

When I invited her she said didn't swim

I said she could just walk. 

Grandpa said "your grandmother doesn't walk."


Then they laughed together

A big shared joke 

That I never got but it was nice to hear them laugh

And she never minded us going


We would cut through the neighbors' yard

To the vacant lot before the big hill

Before the back dune before the dune stairs

Before our beach trek to Mona Lake channel


Grampa would draw a circle in the sand

put a stick in the middle

And another on the edge of the circle 

Where the center stick's shadow fell


When we came back from the lake

We would check the sand dial

To see how much the shadow had moved

The shadows matched the clock's big hand


And then we would know if we were late

And if Grandma would be mad

She was never mad just petting the dog

Who had gotten sick of walking and gone home


But she would always complain 

How we'd been gone forever 

And how even the dog had given up

just to keep us on our toes i think


I would explain about the sundial

And how we really weren't late

And she would humph in her Grama way

And tell me to go wash my feet


Then she would make us sandwiches

Because it was Sunday

And they were Dutch reformed

And did not work on Sundays


And then we would sit on the porch

Or by the basement fire in winter

And I would chatter myself to sleep

Dreaming of sand and sundials and such



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