On the morning of my 58th birthday, I woke up in my old bedroom at my parent’s house. The one where my model horse collection had been displayed on the bookshelves. The one where I’d make an 8th grade nightly call to Kathy Schinner to plan out our outfits for the following day. The one where in 1982 I’d blast Journey on my stereo so that the cute neighbor boy who mowed our lawn would know how cool I was. 

On the morning of my 58th birthday my mom woke up before me and poured batter into a frying pan to cook me special pancakes. This was not something she’d ever done when I was a kid.

They were scorched on one side, but there was enough there to scrape away the good bits and feed myself. 

Not so much unlike my childhood. 

The secret to happiness, it turns out, is not to deny that the burns exist, but to choose to enjoy what’s on the unburned side. 

Lonely and leaning just like this, against a tree. –Joan Baez

And so she stands there
Tough on the outside
In her khaki Wranglers and coordinating shirt and vest combo found in the giraffe section of garanimals at Sears and Roebucks

Back to school shopping, three pairs of couderoys, five tops, one pair of leather shoes, perhaps a coat, nah, never a new coat

Not with two older sisters who are best at breaking things in–
Breaking all sorts of things,
hearts, windows at school, promises to keep their little sister safe

from the nearly boys who come over to get high and fuck when their mother isn’t home, which is most of the time

She stands against the maple in the front yard, head cocked slightly, virginal hair swinging out from behind her back

That tree is barely big enough around to hold her. It’s roots not yet deep. This world isn’t big enough either.

She will harden as she grows fatter and fatter until in high school you can barely recognize her cheekbones, once so prominent.

She leans against the tree, lonely, as her father backs the station wagon onto the street and the Collie dog barks farewell.

I used to have a keychain,
It didn’t bear my name.
My keys would dangle from it
Like my secrets and my shame
I used to keep my doors locked tight 
So no one could get inside 
I thought it best for keeping safe
I dared not open wide 
And the older that I grew, 
I had so much more to guard
My antiques and collectibles, 
the flowers in my yard.
I’d say, “Don’t assume what’s mine is yours, what is mine is only mine.”
That was how I’d hold on tight.
That way I’d be fine 
No giving meant no taking 
No letting others in
Kept my shadows hidden 
And the truth beneath my skin
And then one day a breeze blew by and on it, heard my voice
(Or, that of some angel)
telling me I had a choice–
I could keep my windows 
all closed up,
I could keep my doors locked tight 
Or, I could take a risk, 
and open up to light
Unlock everything,
let it open wide 
Throw away the keys 
that kept others from inside
And if what they saw, they hated?
Well, that was their right to choose, but if I took a chance, the wind had said, 
I’d really none to lose
Now I have a keychain 
with nothing but my name
No keys to dangle to from it
I have no secrets and no shame
There’s a keychain in my pocket, 
Reach down, say my name,
There’s a keychain in my pocket,
What once was lost, regained

I’m in a rented 2014 Gray Hyundai Sonata heading north on some road in Massachusetts there’s a Red Wing Blackbird sitting on a tree on the side and the DJ just had to switch to another CD player live on the radio because the first one wouldn’t work. He just finished playing a beautiful acoustic guitar version of Rebel Rebel sung in Portuguese. I’m on my way to York to jump in a car with Sue and Bobby Jo and go hear them perform in Durham, New Hampshire. Tomorrow I will walk along the beach, and on Saturday, my friend from 1977 will accompany me at a show where my daughter will sing original music in front of a crowd. Life is good. 

One million and thirty two years ago tonight after recording the memory of my reflection on the plate glass window, I went into the bathroom alone, undid my zipper and took out so many bobby pins. I was no longer a bride.

I came into the Hyatt bedroom and laid down next to you and we watched Letterman, or maybe it was the Tonight show. That part of the memory has faded. Either way, there was no consummation of the marriage, no hushed voices, no intimate entangling.

In the morning we boarded a flight to Cancun where you practiced with my Canon, telescopically focusing on a blond in a fuschia bikini. I saw the pictures when we came back home and had the film developed.

You never wanted me. And if I’m honest, I guess you were more my grandmother’s pick than mine. Sure, you had deep brown, pretty eyes, but they never saw me.

Tonight, I am filled instead, with the music of my friends, the sound of my own laughter, the recognition of myself in the mirror.

I can remember as a little girl, maybe even a toddler, taking my warm pink “blankie” to the sliding glass door in the family room when it would rain. I’d lie on the floor, my faithful collie dog beside me and watch the raindrops make their way slowly, then fast, then slow again down the glass. Through them I saw how the treetops in the woods behind our changed form as they’d blur and distort and then blur again. This was my childhood. Blurry and distorted. It had to be seen that way.

Sunny kids who love everyone are vulnerable in a house of pain. A house of screaming fits and dishes in the sink, a dog who hasn’t been brushed all year. There probably was another way to live, but no one ever told them, showed them, how.

And so, every day was viewed through the wet glass, clear enough for some light to get through, some color, but lacking detail enough to convince yourself that the glass was happy for its bath of tears.

I still love the rain.

Funny how little things change–I am writing this from under my blanket. I am an old woman now, my bones ache; my skin, poultry. And my once thick hair is brittle and gray. But I am still that little girl, comforted by the rain, the way it blurred the sounds of my neglected sisters, our neglected life. I hear the drops on my roof now, and my faithful farm collie sighs.

I’ll wash the sheets and make the bed
The dog with muddy paws
I’ll wash the sheets and make the bed
The daughter returning from abroad
I’ll wash the sheets and make the bed
Mine and my lover’s tryst
I’ll wash the sheets and make the bed
My parents’ next, last visit
A week from Thursday,
I’ll wash the sheets
when no one else will feel them.
I’ll wash the sheets and make the bed. Cool and crisp against the skin.
And when I’m slow, and pale, and tired, I’ll make the bed
And then I will climb in.

What did Penelope imagine
when she stared out
across the sea?
Her man fighting waves,
and storms, and beasties
between her and thee?
Did she think for a moment,
Did she consider a whim,
That whist he was away
Another woman
was sleeping with him?
Sure, she was his forever,
his harbor at home,
But while the winds took him away,
Another’s arms were entwirled,
Around his neck, and his torso,
His chest, and his thighs.
Staring, deeply,
so deeply,
into his big brown eyes.

She must’ve considered a possibility, this–
Another one receiving
his gentle sweet kiss,
That came with no promises,
and also no remorse
For it was what it was.
Nothing that mattered, of course.
Just touching and holding,
Moaning at night, (occasionally in the morning, at dawn’s early light.)
But always he’d leave, and turn his ship back toward home.
Where Penelope’d wait, never believing he’d roam.

As for the other woman, well, she’d remember his scent,
and be grateful for the time,
so sweetly they’d spent.
And she’d go back to her life.
And what would be, would still be.
She’d look herself in the mirror.
I see myself in the mirror.
The other woman is me.

If I were a songwriter, I’d sit outside and the birds would create a rhythm that the rustling trees would percuss. 

If I were a songwriter, I’d feel the sun warming the denim over my legs and think about how it must be the way a snowflake feels when it hits the warm ground, slowly spreading out across it’s girth.

If I were a songwriter, I’d noodle on the guitar and him little melodies along with the neighbor’s dog who barks in the distance.

If I were a songwriter, I’d know the sound of the color of the forsythia on a bright spring morn. 

Be a homemaker he said. I’ll buy a big house in the suburbs. I’ll work so you won’t have to. You can take care of the babies.

Create a book group, crochet, knit. It’ll be so nice. Create a space for your children and yourself. Surround yourself with nubby blankets and scented candles. Invite your friends for Christmas.

Don’t worry about ascent. No need for 401k, I’ll take care of the bills. You go to Marshalls find things that delight you. Put them on the shelves. 

30 years from now when you decide that you are more than a trinket, and your kids are grown, and your walls are beautifully painted, you’ll look around and you’ll see: the home that you’ve created was just a dream.

That space, that contained everything you loved, was never your own. Your name. Your own beautiful name, is not on even on the mortgage.

But sure as ink is black, it will be. It will be.