I Miss You    2015-09-04 06:00:20 ET
Oh, my love, I miss you. I miss your putting your arms around me as I do the dishes. I miss the way your face would light up and you would smile the instant you saw me. I miss your arms sliding around me as we sleep. I miss being able to share my thoughts with you. I miss the romance and the many ways you would always surprise me. I miss you.

I miss curling up in your arms and the contentment it brought me. I miss surprising you with your favorite pie and you pretending you didn't know I was baking it.

I remember when we lived in Telluride and had no money. You surprised me one evening by bringing in a huge dandilion puff ball enclosed in a tall vase. I could have kept it forever.

You stood beside me, behind me or before me as any situation presented itself. You spoiled me.

I remember when you were building our home and the walls had no sheet rock for privacy. You fixed our old flatbed trailer with blankets and brought it close to the house so we could hear the kids. Some of the best alone time we had was in that old open trailer.

If I wanted chickens you put up a fence and built me a chicken house. Then when it was cold you fed and watered them. I wanted rabbits and you not only built rabbit hutches but you welded metal ones that would last forever. Then you built kindling boxes for them to raise their young. I wanted the children to experience 4-H and you fenced a yard and built a goat house along with a milking stand. You were did not like horses but bought your children a horse.

My sweet man, you would smile that slow smile and I knew it was just for me.

You would always build whatever it was because you wanted your family to experience all the country could could give us.

I praise God, I still have you but oh, my love, I miss you.

 Beyond the Shadows    2011-03-24 09:09:30 ET
No matter how well you hide in the shadow of others there is always an internal spark that keeps you watching beyond the shadows.

It is late winter or early spring. I have yet to decide what to call February. In California it is chilly and this year we have more than our quota of rain. I love it, hidden in the rain drops, cozy within the compound of others lives. I think that there are always times in our life when we need to feel safe within ourselves. Safe and yet not too far away from what moves around us. I am safe in the knowledge that I can withdraw until I catch up with who I really need to be and what my purpose really is. We are safe in the midst of strangers who would be friends were we not content to keep them as friendly acquaintances. Names better left unsaid as the community of the "apartments" surround us. My mind rest as my child safely plays hidden behind others lives.

 I Tend to Ramble ~    2011-03-03 10:58:37 ET
Today, I drift, but drifting lets one in on the whole picture. Don't you agree?

Did I remember to tell you that I grew up a small town girl. We had about 500 people in our small southern town. I have traveled many places in the US but I seem to put my roots in the places that are still small home town. Telluride is one instance of small towns. I knew Telluride and lived there before the world knew Telluride.

I think living in a small town leads one to be able to drift along securely in the knowledge that they are known, they are accepted as part of the small town tribe (warts and all), and of course there is always someone to jerk them back to the reality of the straight and narrow should they be caught off course to their parents desire.

Small town for me was leaving the house after chores and not coming home until the street lights came on. The feel of the horse under you as you rode bareback across the neighbors pasture. "Choppin and pickin' cotton since it was the only way you could make money if you were underaged. Drifting with your gang over to Lady Anne's Lake so you could shoot each other's shotguns. (By the way, you must remember that a 12 guage hits your shoulder harder than a 410. It will break your collarbone. Try to hide that from your parents until it heals.)

It was traveling the lake in boats and seeing who could find and hit the Water Moccasin (yes, snake) out of the trees without it going into their boat. Finding the still, moonshine, before the revenuers found it. You could always tell because once they found it you were led in by the tip of your nose, you know, the smell. If it hadn't been found then we noted it and stayed away because you didn't want to get shot. Once it had been smashed by the government then we were free to play around in it and see how it had been set up. You could even suck on the mash if you so desired. YUK!

We fished, we smoked rabbit tobacco rolled in brown paper and we smoked grape vine, we had picnics, we ran til dinner. Then, after dinner dishes were done we played kick-the-can until bedtime.

It was being cheerleader for varsity basketball because we didn't have football. It was graduating with a class of six boys and six girls and knowing it was wonderful.

It was having a phone on a party line where the operator asked, "Number please?" It was knowing that all six parties plus the operator would be listening to your conversation.

It was knowing that your conversation could be tapped at any time because of your daddy's position with the government. Talk about a Blast From the Past. That was it "fer" sure. It was about never being afraid of anyone but the Commies and daddy would protect us.

I never heard of killings nor rapes, and not even drugs. But all things change. A young teacher was raped by one of her older share cropper kids. She gave him a car ride and it went down hill from there. She told him she would tell her daddy and he killed her. Daddy couldn't protect. Any of us would have give him a ride, he was one of us, one of our town.

Then my friend died, shot down in a war few of us realized was going on. I have the picture of his name that my daughter took on the wall.

Things change and yet nothing changes, what goes around comes around whether fashion or war. There are still small towns and children who can run into the night. We are still blessed if we but look for the blessing.

Small towns are what our church families are if they are any good. We still have those hidden small towns. I wish everyone could taste small town, USA.

 Fear    2011-02-27 16:41:45 ET
Fear, and I disappeared. Rather like I did here only for different reasons. From here I disappeared because life walked over me. Thus, a break was needed. At that time I disappeared from life itself! I told the preschool that I was running from an abusive relationshkp and that I was afraid for my daughter. I changed her last name at the school. I moved within a week and rented a one bedroom apartment within a small complex under an assumed name in a different area of town. I told the other residents that my husband was a sailor and we had divorced. I said that I was in hiding because I was afraid of him. I kept my job at the insurance company because I was sure that no one knew I worked there.

The apartment complex was two story with the balcony overlooking the pool on the inside. There were two entrances into the complex. There were twenty apartments, all single people. Everyone from journalist for the paper to a musician for the Navy. What a kewl, cool, kewl place. We loved being there and we hid well.
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 Yester~Year    2010-10-10 13:15:31 ET
So the pictures are a little out of place in the map of yesteryear. However, I had them on hand now and posted them.

Where did I stop, why at the Scuttlebutt of course. For some reason all the empty bottles were placed on the floor in front of the bar tenders. Have I mentioned yet how chauvanistic all this was? To place the bottles in the containers I found that I had to bend from the waist exposing all that was under the short little skirt. To get around that I simply knelt with my knees to the wall, place the empties and then stood up to place my order. "In y'all's face, my rear is mine and I show it to who I want and it won't be by your manipulation."

It all begin to work out. One of the girls was pregnant and her guy was out to sea. She needed someone to share rent with since she was going to have to stop working. We moved in together, she watched my little one at night and I worked two jobs. It worked and I survived. Some of it even became fun.

Get up at 5:30 a.m. and dress myself, wake my little one at 6:00, feed her, dress her and leave by seven. Drop at nursery by 7:30, work by 8:00. Work til 5:00, pick little one up at 5:30 to head home and change so I could be at work by 6:30. Work until 12:00 and head home to sleep until 5:30 when it started all over again. Sometimes we would all simply head across the border and party until it was time to head home and start a new day. Especially Friday nights, what a full and tiring life. I can remember a poem I use to quote faithfully to help me get through each day.

First Fig by Edna St. Vincent Millay

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light!


This went on for almost a year. Then one of the boats came in and brought a really wierd stalker. Enough that he scared me and I left with short notice and got a job at NTC or.....Naval Training Center.
Same pay, younger boys and not as much fun because different dynamics. Just a job, just to get by!

By now my friend had her new baby, the Kitty Hawk had come back from deployment and my little one and I had our own apartment. A friend from work kept my little one on the nights I worked. I lived near Balboa and my friend lived down the 5 about 15 miles. I would pick my little one up and then drive back home at the end of my shift.

I always drove out of NTC and turned right. To the left was an area where the guys would catch buses to where ever they were going. I remember seeing a cream colored car in the bus area. It drew my attention because usually no one was in the area. About a block down the road was a gas station. I pulled in to fill my car and the cream colored car drove slowly by the station and parked a half block down the street. My stalker had me more observant than usual. I filled the car, drove into traffic and the cream car pulled in behind me. The night is late, as in midnight when I hit the 5 with this guy behind me. I didn't want to take him to my house and I didn't want to take him to my friends. I thought if I could drive fast enough I could lose him but he stuck with me. I remember wondering where the cops were because they sure weren't on the 5. I slowed at one point until he was right on me and then at the last minute took a ramp losing him. I headed deep into a neighborhood and pulled into someones drive that had a lot of cars around. I turned everything off and waited watching the side roads. He came back, he stopped at each road and idled while he looked and then drove on to the next side street. He went back and forth for almost 30 minutes until I didn't see him any longer. I waited until nearly 4:00 and then backed out and went to my friends where I spent the rest of the night. I walked away from NTC without a backward glance and did not even go in to get my check. I never saw the car again but the fear stayed with me.
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