When he called to say he’d be home early, an hour away at most,
she hurriedly grabbed the signs of her weekend with passion:
the voluptuously hot-colored glass,
(a spontaneous deviation from her usual blues),
the achingly sharp tools …
the milky white adhesives,
the markers (you are MINE!),
the ubiquitous remnants of joy
left strewn across the table,
the chairs,
the floors,
her clothes…
the Tears for Fears,
the Prince,
the Elton.
Closet closed now,
the sweep of the vacuum,
the stash of memories
now buttoned up,
but only a wisp away
from tomorrow’s
studio time.
Pam Goode Writes
With Apologies if You Live in the Northeast
I don’t mean to gloat, but … IT’S SPRING!!!! IT’S SPRING!!!!
No more cold winter nights (we had TWO this year! Horrendous!) or clamoring around the house searching for a blanket — it was just hell, I tell you! HELL!
And now that every potential frost drop has high-tailed it under the cover of your chinny chin chin, we’ve been frolicking ALL over the place. Yes indeed — every hour of the day and night, and I’m like a whole new person now that the “winter” has passed in the south. I even waved to a stranger!
Here’s hoping with all my heart that your spring is hurtling toward you as we speak. And if it’s not your turn yet, it’s headed your way. I promise.
When *S*****T* Happens
Well then.
Sometimes it feels like the world is caving in a bit, and maybe it is; or maybe it isn’t and it’s all just coming from me.
For the second time, I’ve had my credit card stolen at a place that I frequent regularly — a place filled with kind, quiet, people who spend a couple of hours working on their computers in a pleasant environment. The first time it happened, I felt like it must have somehow been my fault. Of course it wasn’t.
Now that it’s happened a second time, I’m livid and … something else that I haven’t yet identified. The difference is that this time I told everyone nearby immediately and then pretty much everyone I know when I got home. Why? Because I don’t want it to happen to anyone else. Yes, I’m savvy enough to know that these things happen all around us far too often, but loving enough to believe that I won’t be robbed because I’m a good and kind person. Yes, well … I guess that’s naive to a “T” isn’t it?
And it leaves me wondering about life in so many ways.
One of the problems for me is that I really, really don’t want to have to beware every time I leave the house. I really, really don’t want to believe that any passerby and his mother is out to steal from me and who knows who else. And I really, really don’t want to spend the rest of my life watching my back. I’d like to say that I refuse to live that way, but the truth is that I won’t be able to let it go — I’ll be watching my back pretty much forever now. I suppose you could say that’s a good thing, but it doesn’t feel good to me.
Yes, it’s a huge wake-up call that hopefully melds okay-ish with my life, but there will always be a part of me that hates it.
Uncommon
There was a moment
that I raised my head
to yours,
an uncommon
instant
for shy girls.
It was a meeting
of hearts —
one strong.
one reticent.
But your smile was a steadying hand
that reached across divides
of country, persuasion, tomorrows, or names,
and steadied me.
One heart steadying another.
Fleetingly —
and ever present.
© Pamela Pardue Goode
Costa Rica: A Teaser
When I first made this trip 20+ years ago, we traveled across the Pan Am Highway, her roads broken into car-sized holes that slowed the journey considerably. It didn’t bother me an ounce, because travel teaches us truth. And during every visit since, I’ve watched Costa Rica blossom in so very many beautiful directions. I pray it will always be so.
And now, once again, we’re here! First, we’ll enjoy a beautiful three-hour journey through the countryside. Along the way, we’ll pass small houses with colorful laundry hanging, stalls selling creches and life-size deer figures, and vast fields of sugar cane. The backlit fronds of the cane will compete for our attention with their feathery tufts.
The roads are hilly and winding, with lushly planted homegrown guardrails of Dracena protecting against the steepest drops. Fortunately, traffic is mild. A small white dog trots up the road; a hilltop palm missing most of its fronds arcs leeward in the mist. I spy a rounded tree literally covered with white birds — at least 50 of them — and again, I wonder.
Halfway through the drive, we stop for coffee and the skies open wide for the twenty minute afternoon rain. When we pile back into the van, mist has settled onto the hairpin turns taking us down the mountain, but not enough to obscure the drive of banana, coffee, bougainvillea, citrus trees, dracena, palms, unfamiliar tropical fauna with giant leaves in every shape, blooming brush, and one surprising stand of three-needled pines.
Bridges become more frequent as we cross rocky streams and rivers, each path only one-laned, making a gentle dance of transport vans and the occasional bus or truck. Most of the locals walk, wisely against the traffic but still along the road with neither sidewalk nor shoulder for safety. Small signs advertise local businesses: “Many Meaty Dishes. All Meatless. All Tasty.” The rafters of a porch along the roadside support 20 bunches of bananas hanging by ropes. We pass through several small towns, and as the 5:00 sunset moves in, the people double in number — there is so much walking through the nightfall, and I hope hard that each arrives home safely.
We reach Finca Luna Nueva at what seems like 10 or 11 PM, though it is actually closer to 6:00, and we ascend the gravel just as moonstain moves in, spreading her welcome across the sky.
The lovely ladies of the lodge feed us well — offering chicken with saffron rice, soup, organic spinach, juices and salad from the farm, and I’m fast asleep before 9:00, tucked away in my little cabin with Costa Rican breezes blowing through.
I pray it will always be so.
P.S. Twenty years of visiting Costa Rica regularly, and I’ve never, ever tired of it. Bring it on in January 2024!
A Day in the Life
It’s Sunday morning, and I’m delighted to be able to loll about. The sky is that brilliant blue that signals chilliness and jackets that are only worn for the first thirty minutes before you’re warmed and ready to roll.
My sweetest is at the gym, and when he’s all gymmed out and feeling pumped,
we’ll grab a bite of something and people-watch.
It’s Sunday morning, and I’m delighted to be able to loll about. The sky is that brilliant blue that signals chilliness and jackets that are only worn for the first thirty minutes before you’re warmed and ready to roll.
My sweetest is at the gym, and when he’s all gymmed out and feeling pumped,
we’ll grab a bite of something and people-watch.
This afternoon my baby and her babies will visit as the sun warms us enough for naked toes.
We’re carving a pumpkin.
Babies love to be naked. So do adults, but we’re trained against that simple joy and we’ve learned our training well.
I’ll finish a mosaic I’m working on after looking askance at it for a couple of years. It feels ready.
And I wonder how long the average person takes to complete a piece of art. How long do you look at it? How long do you breathe it in? How long does it take to meld both thought and action into one mind? And does the waiting, the considering, take more time than necessary, or the exact number of hours to blossom?
And so I’ll laugh with the babies and their babies, and then I’ll return to silence that is never the silence others anticipate, but the beautiful melding of vision to brain to possibility to creation.
The Really, Really, Really Bad Day
“You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocket ship underpants don’t help.”
(Quote by Bill Watterson)
Today I was totally prepped for a great day. My husband has been on the other side of the continent for a week, and he flies home tonight. I’m wearing my Happy Clothes, saved for special days. The house is clean. Ish. I’ve amassed a neatly folded give-away pile with oooooooodles of my favorite (too small) outfits, we’re deep in the dregs of summer, which means we’ll soon be cooler (right?), I’m on break from cleaning the attic (self-imposed), and the garden flowers are joyously blooming despite daily basking in the bowels of hell.
But then — who knows, but something clicked — or unclicked, and hell threw open that door. And I’d say I haven’t been able to shake this Very Bad Day, but the truth is that I’m just not ready. Because you have to be real. You have to walk through these things rather than around. Otherwise they never go away, and just bury themselves in your psyche instead.
So I looked up Bad Day quotes. And honestly, they totally sucked except for Hobbes and Bill, so I made my own.
Snark: an attitude or expression of mocking irreverence and sarcasm.
Blech. I really, really don’t like snarky people. We all have so much goodness deep in our hearts — why waste it on the opportunity to hurt someone?
And I guess that’s the extent of it. I haven’t been shot or robbed or suffered a great loss. I have endless happy choices at my fingertips. But today, I guess what I really am is sad.
And I am. I’m really, really sad.
Footnote: Hobbes, named for philosopher Thomas Hobbes, is Calvin’s stuffed tiger and best friend.
In the Neighborhood
When we first moved in, we could sit on the porch and see nothing but green. No other houses. Rarely a human form. It was pretty amazing, considering we live smack dab in the middle of the city, or less so, realizing ours is the last on an unmarked dead-end street with only 5 houses in total.
We have no back yard, but the front runs for 120 feet and then drops into Briar Creek (aptly named), and thus began our soul-stirring relationship with nature. We could see egrets on the bank, training their eagle eyes on unsuspecting fish, hawks circling for daily joy rides, deer prints …. I drove home from the studio late one evening, and as I reached our short street, an owl appeared and flew alongside me not even two feet from my face until I pulled into the garage, my mouth hanging open the entire time.
And then as gardeners do, we began planting. Okay, mostly my husband, who cares nothing for temperature or insects or the clock or even food. And of course the more we planted, the fuller and more lush the garden became, transforming itself to a wonderland so deep and multi-layered that we could no longer see the creek or the egrets standing watch, and we assumed that “progress” in the neighborhood had moved them along. I missed them, but I also loved the banana and fig and mimosa trees that had magically sprung up in their place.
Or perhaps more accurately, the banana and fig and mimosa trees that had shortened my vision.
A few days ago we went for a walk along our winding two-lane main road, and I suddenly felt pulled to jump off the sidewalk and shimmy down the bank for an eyeful of our creek from a different point of view. And there, some fifteen feet below the level at which we pass our days, focused too heavily on where we’re going and whether or not we’ll be late, I spied a gorgeous four foot heron picking her long-legged way towards us.
Hang on Sweet Nature. You give me hope.
What do You See?
I see a whole bunch of us not understanding what’s going on in our world.
I see a child wondering where rain comes from, and why.
I see a construction worker who draws well.
I see happiness in the cordoned off zone of a parking lot.
I see someone, or a universe, that needs a hug.
I see polka dots.
I see yellow shoes that have been places. Lots of places.
I see a smile that’s only implied.
I see love waiting for her other half.
Birds and Words
Today I got out early enough for a bit of a breeze and so many birds, The birds are a gift to my own ever-tenuous ability to hear, as well as a sort of much needed cosmic validation that stretches between us. I’m still here and you’re still here, and some knowing of that life spark passes between us.
When I walk, the words flow, quite unlike the way they sit, box-like, arms crossed and eyes shut tight to truth, when I’m still. I often invite them quite graciously to join me at the table, but they know my tricks. And more, they know the cage has to rattle for truth to escape.
So I use my legs for the rattling. They say exercise saves lives. I say that much of that rebirth springs from the ground and heads straight to the page.
Pam Goode Writes 