A Love Hate Friendship

For the longest time I loved you. And hated you. Actually, it was more of an envy. ‘Cause day in and day out boys liked me but wanted you. Week after week I was cute but you were hot. Back then I was pretty sure cute was a four letter word.
            Things were different today. In court. When you were trying to get permanent custody of your granddarlings. You wore a black suit with a pink top and you’d twisted your waist-length hair into a complicated figure eight. You peered at the judge over your Target reading glasses. Not a stitch of makeup on.
            That morning I’d slipped into my all-green Ann Taylor outfit hoping it would make my eyes seem aqua and communicate this-chick-has-her-act-together. I styled my hair Jennifer Aniston straight. Sprayed it with Aveda gloss drops and everything. I primed my lips then slicked them with stay-the-day lipgloss in L’il Red Corvette. Tucked the tube in my sparkly clutch for touchups. 'Cause you never know who's looking when.

            When you introduced me to your lawyer, I got the feeling he thought I was pretty. Maybe even hot. I saw him inspect my hands, probably checking for a wedding ring. Man, I tell you what. That guy sure knows how to jack his jaws. Don't know if he's always like that or if he was just trying to impress the judge. Or me.
            I giggled behind my hand every time the just-the-facts lady judge said, "Get to the point, counselor." 
            Even though I thought your attorney exceedingly long-winded, I liked it afterwards when he said my testimony on your behalf was like a verbal hug. That wasn't what I'd prayed for. It was better.
            The coolest thing was when Judge Just-the-Facts asked me how long I'd known you. I swept my shiny hair behind my shoulders and said, "Forty years, ma'am."
            I almost missed her awarding you physical and legal custody of your twin granddaughters. I was still focused on those forty years. And how some things change like hating you and some things stay the same like loving you.

The Bodacious Maturation of Wonder Riley--1

The best present Granny Cat Clark ever received was from me—Wonder Riley. I know this because she tells me practically every day. She covers my wild red rumpus hair with her big-as-man hands and exclaims.

            “Wonder, have I told you lately how incredibly special I find my throne?”

            I’d trash-picked the eight foot antique hall tree but I took care to never mention that fact to her. I had no desire to reduce it in her esteem. Even so, I suspect Granny Cat may have figured it out as I am not a young woman of great means.

            Most recently, I told her of an exciting and wonderful future event.

            “My beau’s creating a seat cushion for it, Granny Cat,” I said. “Then you’ll love it even more.”

            She p-shawed me. “Now you listen here, Sugar Pop,” she said. “That boy is not your beau, not your forever love. Trust me. I have a gift. I know these things.”

            She coaxed two tangerine-colored tendrils out of my updo, arranged them on either side of my face.

            “A boy who sews fashion items is not one who will adore a woman,” she said. “Well, not in the way you want. Or need.”

            I’d laid my hand over hers. “But it’s rainbow velvet, Granny. With a brush fringe. I’m pretty sure you’ll wet your britches when you see it.”

            I didn’t want her to be right about Charlie, but her certainty gave me pause. Maybe that’s why he always kissed my fingers, not my cheek. Nor my lips, full and glossy as I maintained them. Whenever we came together after a separation he’d say, “Enchante” and lift my fingertips to his mouth. He wouldn’t release them for the longest time. And sometimes his eyelashes appeared damp. That meant he cared, right?

            Charlie'd worn mittens, charcoal gray ones, the last time we’d been together. His papa had duct-taped them to his wrists.

            “Why?” I said as I fished Granny Cat’s sewing scissors out of her darning basket. “Is he concerned you would— That we might—”

            Charlie collapsed beside me on the sofa. “No,” he said as he wept against my chest. “He doesn’t want me to stitch again. Ever.”

            But that’s a recent tale. I probably should regress.

(You can read part 2 here.) 

There's No One Like Me, Right?

What you must know about me, if you must, is that there’s a book in me, a confessional really. Thing is, I don’t know when (or perish the thought, if) it will ever get from the inside of me into a bound book. The creation of it is kinda killing me. It’s just another thing I’ve started and not finished ‘cause eight hundred four things come at me a day moving at least twelve miles per hour and my little (self-diagnosed) A.D.H.D. brain says, “I can’t do everything so I’ll . . .  check Facebook. Change the laundry over. Pet a bunny. Gobble a tiny triangle of shortbread decorated with dark chocolate and peppermint dust.”

            Then this demon with a face like a burnt marshmallow perches on my knee and his talons, to tell the truth, they hurt a lot inside my skinny jeans even though I’m wearing black and white striped Betsey Johnson over-the-knee socks ‘cause a West Virginia winter in a one hundred one year old house can be pretty chillay. That’s French for chilly, you know.

            And the wee, wrinkly, skin-flaking freak lectures me. Tells me I’m a Shop-Vacking failure at life. That if I was really a good girl with some value I’d be scrubbing the hardwood floors on my hands and knees in the morning, Bible studying and chauffeuring kids all afternoon, and commuting an hour away to do a booksigning (Yeah, a real writer would have a book that people would line up to sign.) at a cute café in a historic district ‘til midnight. And the weird thing is, I believe him. Even though I know failure is just another F word.

            But that’s just me. No one else feels this way, right?

           

So then I get an idea. I fetch a Band-Aid and scribble a scripture on it. Slap it (gently though, ‘cause truth be told, I’m hurting) on my forehead. Oh gosh. That feels so much better. I lean toward the mirror and translate the aqua-penned, backward writing, on the flesh-toned strip.

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

           

Take that, you fart face, skin-flaking, marshmallow moron.