Even Ugly Things Can Be Made Beautiful - Camilla Basham

I remember when my Grandpa died a couple of years ago. People came to the house, Mom cooked chocolate chip cookies, I got to stay home from school, got loads of presents from everyone like it was my birthday or something. I remember wishing a couple of more relatives would die so I could complete my miniature porcelain tea set.

Mom tried to explain. “Grandpa has gone away and isn’t coming back.”

“Where?” I demanded.

“He’s at peace now, Ruthie. He’s gone to the same place as your goldfish.”

“Ewwww!”

Running to the bathroom thinking they had flushed him, I imagined him just round the U-bend. I spent that summer stuffing bologna sandwiches and T.V. Guides down the toilet. Mom finally decided to call the doctor when she found me with my head down the toilet bowl telling him who Carol Burnett’s special guests would be that week.

Beautiful, If Not So Ugly - John Fetto

The troops moved by, not ten feet below the ridge where all four men lay, clinging to the flat land like men clinging to a cliff with only their fingers digging into the dirt stopping them from sliding off. Hawley lay off to Willie’s, peering over his forearm, not at the troops below but at orange black spider that was climbing his sleeve and was crawling along the fabric of his jersey. Each spiked leg, picked slowly towards the bare skin of his wrist. It would have been almost beautiful if it hadn’t been so ugly, black prickly legs stepping along to the beat of the troops walking down below. Anytime they could look up, see peering through the fronds, and if they did, Hawley and his friend would be pricked by bone shattering lead. No matter what they all must still and not make a sound. Hawley didn’t move, even as his eyes crossed watching the bug, and sweat ran down his cheeks. He didn’t move even as Willie reached over and with pinched the spiders head with fingers black with dirty, grimy nails. Thick ugly hands but just then they looked beautiful as the held the head of the spider and watched as it’s little legs kept wiggly until it stopped.

You're a Horrible Person, But I Like You - Donna Shomer

Fred Cohen taught us to
Find the good in people
And then right after that
You could give them ‘feedback’:

What I like about you
Are the shoes you are wearing
What needs improvement
Is the asshole standing in them.

My mother recited
This one poem to me
again and again –
About the little girl with the curl
In the middle of her forehead
And about how when she was good
She was very very good
But when she was bad
She was horrid.

You know that one?
I always felt sure that
She repeated that hellish verse
because she was trying to tell me something.
You know, first say something nice about the hair –
and then give the ‘feedback’….
I worried about a curl
that would somehow protrude ghoulishly
From my forehead
And I knew I was very very bad.

You're a Horrible Person, But I Like You - Shonna Anderson

I remember a friend back in high school. She wasn’t a horrible person by any means, but was so burrowed so deeply inside her shell that I would try anything to entice her out and be her friend. It was as though I was completely fascinated by her disinterest in having friends or being part of the “in-crowd”. For someone who tried so hard to be liked and to be accepted, to be around someone who seemingly didn’t care, was something I was drawn to. If I could become her friend I thought maybe some of that cool aloofness could rub off on me.

As I’ve gotten older though I’ve realized that what I perceived as being uninterested and unbothered by the cliques of high school was actually more likely a defense mechanism for her own lack of self-confidence. I find myself wondering sometimes what has become of her. Has she come out from behind the wall that she so carefully built around her? Does she let people into her world? Is she happy now?

Imperfection - Judy Albietz

That afternoon, I decided to knit something other than a scarf. I’d already made scarves for my loyal family members. With big needles and big yarn, I could whip up a scarf in a few days. It didn’t matter if it wasn’t perfect. My mom always said that a flaw in the knitting proves that it’s handmade. Anyway, with something you wrap around your neck, a purl instead of a knit stitch really doesn’t matter. When everyone had a scarf, I was ready to move on to the next level. I wanted to make a hat for my year-old grandson. I headed over to the local knit shop. The owner was glad to outfit me with fine baby blue washable wool yarn, a book with an “easy” pattern, calling for narrow-gauge circular needles and four double-pointed needles. I told her I had never used any of these kinds of needles. She promised me it was a piece of cake. I just had to keep count of my stitches. She sold me a white plastic counter for that too. She said to come back if I had any problems.

It took me almost an hour to “cast on” correctly, getting the yarn firmly lined up—not twisted backwards—on the needles. The first rows took much longer than I was used to, since the yarn and needles were thinner and narrower. I told myself that working with this yarn was much more grown-up than the big yarn. The instructions showed me how to start reducing, to form the dome of the hat. Then, many, many hours into the project, I was breathless with excitement to get to the next stage: the double-pointed needles. I was very proud of myself in figuring out what the pictures in the book were telling me what to do to close up the top of the hat. Just as I reached the finish line, I saw it. In the 5th row, there was a tiny hole, probably a knit instead of a purl. I turned the hat around a few times, trying to see if it really showed. It did. But I wasn’t worried because the knit shop lady would know what to do. The shop door chimed merrily as I entered the store clutching my nearly-finished baby hat. The owner didn’t look as friendly as before as I placed the hat on her counter. I showed her the little problem with the hat. I asked her to show me how to fix it. She smiled, “Yes, dear. You need to rip it out and start all over again.”

Imperfection - Maria Robinson

Martha sipped a cuban coffee at Velasquez Cafe in Brooklyn. Stumbling out of the subway and up the stairs, the hurtling ride from Manhattan always felt like crossing a rough sea. Brooklyn had become her hideout, her London, a place as irregular as the City was regular. It was the perfection of the brewed Cafe bustelo, the blue corn mexican tortillas at Maria's, the brick ovens and baby greens filled restaurants, channeling San Francisco. she was drawn to the people, all of the expressionist New Yorkers who could create their own micro neighborhoods. What she was really looking for was another chance, another love. she knew she'd be unable to move to Brooklyn, leave the stability of the her mother's arrangements which included the care and education of her two young children. But something had to give from the perfect reconstruction of her life after her divorce.

Taken By Surprise - Nancy Cech

Wednesday 6:15pm, I’m sitting at my desk trying to wrap up the day and the phone rings. It’s my boss. I’m new to her team I asked for a re-assignment a couple of months ago to get some distance from a psychotic narcissist (you heard about him earlier in the week.) She’s great. I love her. She’s level headed, gives you room to think, appreciates good work and pretty much leaves me to do my job. But she never calls me after 5 so somethings up.

“Hi. How’s it going.”
me...”Oh great, just prepping for this new assignment we get to kick off tomorrow.”

We’re talking in code these days, with fake enthusiasm. See we just did get a new assignment for a project that we know won’t work. Basically we’re trying to woo back clients that decide to leave the firm. It’s sort of like sending flowers to your ex after you’ve signed the divorce papers, along with a letter that talks about how much weight we’ve lost, that we’ve learned to cook fine french food, and that we really miss you. It’s a little too late. But corporations are funny that way. We all agree to have a corporate memory lapse when the project comes down from the president with an emphatic get it done. Okay so there I am prepping for something that I know won’t work and she says “Well your work is going to get even more interesting. I got laid off today.”

My jaw literally drops. I always thought that was some exaggeration, but I feel the muscles get slack and my mouth open. Did drool just pool out? Thank goodness no one is around.

“That’s insane.” I say. Thinking about what this means. We are in the middle of a re-org and quite frankly don’t have enough folks with her depth of experience.

“Yep. I was asked not to say anything, but I had to tell you. You’ll be reporting into my boss and he’ll come by to talk to you tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry. I really have enjoyed working for you. You really bring a lot of value and I think it’s a big mistake. I was really looking forward to working with you this year.” I say this and I mean it. It’s one of the few things that was authentic that I said that day. And then the line everyone has to say “You know it will be better in the long run, everyone lands some place that makes them happier. And jobs are coming back online. Lots of them. Hey did hear about K. her new job is overseeing the European division. She’s going to Paris next week and is staying for 6 months.” We go on to chat about colleagues that have left, some on their own, most at the hand of re-orgs. Almost all have found work. Only one or two haven’t. The conversation ends on a congratulatory note, me to her. We do give good severance.

And with that I get to go to work today to have my new boss tell me the same story. And I look forward to my second interview for a new job at a different company next week.

Self-Portrait - E. D. James

She pushed against the rail of the ship with her arms and arched her back trying to get out the kinks from forty hours of air travel. The sun beat down strongly in the way it does at high latitudes in late summer and a mild breeze kicked up the musty organic smell of the river. She felt good in her new beach bucket hat, sol shirt, and zip off khaki pants, all made of organic cotton. She’d splurged a bit getting ready for this trip. Even still, it had hardly made a dent in the advance they’d given her. The clothes she’d bought were somewhat nerdy but also were cut in a way that made her feel good about her body. She wanted to project a professional image. Evolutionary biologists weren’t known for their sartorial sense, but Olivia liked to have a bit of style no matter what she was doing. She’d also made sure the shirts all covered the lotus flower tattoo on her upper arm. The yin/yang at the back of her neck she would keep covered by wearing her hair down. Some men, particularly in foreign countries, tended to make some judgments about a woman who wore tattoos. She didn’t want to have to give any of the men she’d be dealing with any more excuse than their own egos to hit on her.

Self-Portrait - Karen Oliver

What an amazing self-portrait it was. She was seated at the dining room table, facing a mirror propped on an easel and painted what she saw. It was unfathomable what she really saw but what was created awes everyone twenty-five years later. Her single pigtail on the left side of her head, painted in turquoise and outlined half in red and half in orange with a royal blue band holding it to her purple hair. The opposite pigtail was pink, similarly outlined in orange on one side and red on the other. Her forehead was yellow and her glasses, in metallic gold, enclosed a silver area that contained her piercing blue eyes, looking right at you. The bottom of her face resembled a clown in a way. Red clown nose, pink lips with a red line in the center and each cheek was a contrasting color, one turquoise and one purple. The left side of her chest contained a starburst of blue, black, orange and purple with a red center. More heart than I have ever seen. The other side showed a royal blue shoulder and the chest itself was green decorated with gold squares. The background, yellow and gold, orange and purple, light blue and green, with white spaces and even a few small figures, held the portrait in perfect balance. What is it that children see that leads to such freedom and beauty?

Self-Portrait - Melody Cryns

How weird to see the words “self-portrait” as I sit here and look at my graduation picture proofs, sent to me in the mail last night so that I can decide if I want to order any of them. Of course my graduation hat or whatever it’s called is cocked to one side and falling off my head – it doesn’t sit on my head the way it does on everyone else’s – towards the front. I remember when I was in high school, I always envied the girls with the beautiful, long silky hair that they wore parted in the middle and it would fall just right – while my hair was wild, thick and unkempt and wouldn’t lay right like that – I’d always have to pull it back in a half pony-tail or do something with it. It’s like, why couldn’t I look like the rest of the girls in high school? Why couldn’t I be like any of them?

And there I was 35 years later – after graduating from high school in the huge football field at Washington High in San Francisco up on the hill – trying to get the cap to fit on my head right, but it just wouldn’t work.

I like to think that in the past 52 years, I’ve grown and changed and perhaps learned a few things a lot the way. I’m sure I have, but then again, I’ve always surrounded myself with music and pictures of the Beatles and that has never changed.

As I sit here listening to the Beatles songs on the radio, I find myself wondering why the Beatles are such a big part of my life – why their pictures surround me at home, their music envelops me and how their music seems to follow me wherever I go – if not Beatles music, then some music and it all relates and comes back to them – the Beatles.

When an era ends, a new one begins – and somehow, some way I can’t let the spirit of the Beatles and everything they stand for die – no matter what I must do, I’ve got to keep the spirit alive. Tomorrow is my son Stevie’s 29th birthday – I like to think that I’ve kept his spirit alive somehow, some way.

Self-Portrait - Kate Bueler

Self-portrait. Self-portrait. I used to draw, draw myself, draw my surroundings, paint, paint on the canvas without much thought, thought at all. I had forgotten the freeness I felt as I painted and penciled free of the thoughts of others of what was good or right or the way it was supposed to be. But then I found the proof. The proof in my parent’s garage when I was called to clean out my childhood items. Items. Memories. Art. Artifacts. When I found-the huge cut out peaces of paper-not one but many. I was blown away. Away. That I had painted such pieces on the canvas, the canvas of my preschool. I had forgotten. How to do. It. It. But then it said Katie B. on it and it was in fact in my parent’s garage so it must be mine. I was taken aback that I had created, created something that I would frame and put upon my wall. My wall. Because now I can’t do that. That. The painting freely bubbling colors out of my hand my mind fingertips to the masterpiece. I had forgotten I could paint. Paint. Until I found the proof. The proof. My first memory I remember is being on a field trip with my school, preschool, and it being my birthday, I had a crown and we went to the fire station. Afterwards I taught everyone a song next to the creek. A song I had made up. A brave child I a stood on the rocks of the dry creek of the 80’s California drought and there I sang, sang bravely by myself a song I had wrote and then taught the others. Crown on my head. I smile just thinking about it now.

The bravery of a child I sometimes forget I have. The bravery to really do our self-portrait. Paint it, sing it, just be it. It.

The second piece of proof of my ability to create was a photo a photo of me I found. Found-I thought it had been lost. I had barely any childhood photos; we had thought my mother had took them. But there they were in boxes, with my baby book my mother’s notes written out in her flowery handwriting, pictures of my childhood, but also my mother’s. The detest of cleaning-of clearing-of getting rid of-I found a treasure. A treasure that without it I felt incomplete. I needed pictures of my childhood so I could remember. So I could see the love, the love that I had forgotten. The love of a mother to her child- her almost always behind that camera-but sometimes in the photos I see her smile. I smile remembering the love. The love that did exist. And must still. Must still. My self-portrait. My self. Finding myself was finding my past, these lost items. They are me. I can’t be me without remembering; remembering I can paint and sing and I do in fact have a mother. A mother who let me watercolor all over my face, and run around the house naked, and make mud pies. A mother that poured chamomile lotion on the chicken pox, and let me hair stand on in, let me carry around bags, bags everywhere. I was the bag lady and still am. My self. Self-portrait. Looks a lot like her. Her. Even if I try to forget. Remember who I am. I am. I still her. She is still me.

What Happens After - Kate Bueler

What happens after. What happens after is I leave my earrings. I almost always do. Do. I leave earrings at a man’s place I am involved with. It has became a problem it really has. At this moment I have one pair sitting in a man’s closet waiting for them to come back home. There they sit and collect dust day by day. And I still want them. But how to ask for the earrings back or the books or the sweatshirts or anything for the matter.

Earrings. I stopped wearing them after after I got infections in my ears and decided I couldn’t. But at the ripe age of 26 I started wearing them again and that is where the problem started. I left my earrings places not just a friend’s house but at a guys places and some I was more involved with than others but I always got my earrings back. Somehow. I swore to see them one more time to collect my things. But if they were so important- why did I leave them in the first place? Why leave them at all? Why ask for them back? Just allow them to go into the abyss of the lost and found of dating. No that would be too easy. So I asked for them back each time they were my current favorite pair. One guy bob returned them to me on our 2nd and final date. Another guy Tony just brought them to some festival. Another met me at a coffeeshop. Those were easy to get back because none of those guys really meant anything to me.

But it’s harder to ask once, once someone means something and it’s not just the earrings you are asking for. But more. You leave them on the nightstand because you have seen that nightstand more often than not, it has became your friend, like the bed, and the roommates, and the dog and the. So you think nothing when you lay them down by your side you to sleep and think nothing when you leave them. Because you will be back. Of course you will. You get too certain, too cocky and then your earrings multiply into something more than they really should. Because yes you want your shit back-but you want more back then just material possessions that hang from your ear-you want more back. The earrings become another a meeting, a chance at goodbye, a chance.

A chance for something. I always ask for my earrings back but it really isn’t about my earrings because I never do leave the family heirlooms of my rings or earrings no never do I. I want more back, more back then the earrings. I guess I want another chance to make things okay. Another chance to make sure it is really over. Another chance to say goodbye. Another chance to get my shit and walk away. Walk away and really mean it. The earrings are replaceable but this thing these attempts at love aren’t-no they aren’t . They are real tries and real chances and all the earrings returned in the world will never make the disappointment feel less. No never will it feel less because of the returned earrings. But I still ask from them back. Every time I do. I ask for the earrings but really I am just asking for more.

What Happens After - Karen Oliver

The five of them were sitting around a white linen covered table in this slightly dated, elegant restaurant. Many of the other diners were older, probably due to the early hour. They were making jokes about the “early bird special” and wondering whether things had come to that. Dinner and discussion of the book they had read last month was the order of the day and they were using it to get to know one another better. Serendipitously, there was a medical theme running through their group; each person was a doctor or a medical practitioner of some type so they knew one another in a way most new friends would not. The first night they met, one of the women had walked in and, even before introductions, had immediately talked sadly about a friend who was dying of a horrible disease. The others immediately focused, sat and listened, discussed the medical facts and the difficult feelings. They all knew then that this was a special group. Their conversations would have a special flavor and they would keep confidences.

Tonight the phrase in their book, “open secret”, came up in the discussion of ways we hide our feelings from one another and the youngest of them, a physician, suddenly blurted out that her husband had had an affair several years earlier and she was still suffering deeply. An indrawn breath and then another told that she, too, had dealt with infidelity but she had resolved her feelings about it. There was a pause and Melissa deliberated. No one knew. She had kept his confidence at her peril for years and she was exhausted from hiding. If she wasn’t honest now, she would throw away an opportunity for relief of her isolation and abandon the possibility of deeper connection in this group. No one would know why, but if she hid again now, she would withdraw just a little and everyone would feel it energetically. This was a crucial moment in her healing and she decided to leap over the line. “Yes, my husband cheated on me too”, she said. All eyes turned to her; “I have never told anyone.” Then the fourth woman said, guiltily, “I had an affair for years with a married man” and one of the previous women, who was dealing with her husband’s infidelity, said, “I had an affair with a married man, too.” The moment stunned everyone and then, suddenly, they all burst out laughing, loudly, tears rolling down their faces. All eyes in the quiet restaurant focused on them but they didn’t care. Magic had just happened and the tears of laughter and women and safety and joy and sadness filled the moment with an energy none would never forget.

What happens after? Well, whatever. This was a leap of faith.

What Happens After - Judy Radin

After the guests are gone. After the leftovers are put away. After the last dirty wineglass is dried to a mirror finish, that’s when she can finally breathe. Everyone had a good time. The food was delicious. The conversation stimulating. She loves having people around. The house humms with energy and activity. But there’s nothing like solitude – the peaceful, undisturbed silence that comes when she’s alone. She lets her guard down. Her shoulders relax. Nothing can hurt her.

Kissing - Melody Cryns

When my lover kisses me, I feel a thousand tiny bits of electricity shoot through my body, and I’ warm and tingly all over. Just last night I saw my lover, jumped into the car with him and he kissed me and I felt it right away…

We went to Pizza My Heart where he ordered a pizza and salad – the Maui Wowie slice of pizza, and I ordered a piece of mushroom pizza. We both drank iced tea, mine with Splenda and his without, and we talked and got caught up on life since he’d just returned from a one-week journey to Alaska. I looked right into his eyes as he talked to me – wondering, because I thought they were blue but they looked light brown in the light – so are my lover’s eyes blue or light brown? Old photos of surfers from the 1960’s covered the walls and for some reason we really like that place – they play cool 60’s and 70’s music there – not just surf music, but even some rare Beatles tracks and all sorts of things – we never knew what we’d hear, but for today we were focused on one another.

We talked about books and writing, and he told me he could never edit a book like mine because it’s written in the first person and it would be wrong to edit something written so intimately too much. We talked about music, and he said he wished he could find someone who played guitar just like he did before the stroke a year ago – that it was difficult to find. Music is my lover’s life, even after the stroke.

We talked about books we both liked and musicals – like Jesus Christ Superstar which he said he saw twice live, and Hair and Oliver.

Then we headed back to my place which happened to be free of kids for the evening and we kissed for a long time before we made love…

I can’t say exactly how it works for us, but it works so nicely…and afterwards, we kiss some more and hold each other and I find myself wishing that he could stay for the whole night, but he never does…

but he did agree that one day, he would.

Kissing - Shonna Anderson

When you really think about it, kissing is extremely strange. We put our lips together and basically lick each other. And we enjoy it. I once read that the biological reason we kiss each other is because we can sense a lot about a person and their compatibility to us through their saliva. So, basically we have to taste another person to know if we’re compatible. It seems strange, but maybe there is some truth in it. There have been some times when I’ve kissed someone and there’s been absolutely no chemistry, like kissing my brother. Maybe it was my animal instinct telling me he wasn’t the right one for me. Maybe our genes were too similar and we’d end up with one messed up baby. I certainly wouldn’t want that. But what about those great kisses, the ones that have left me weak in the knees? Was that chemistry a sign that we would have had perfect, cute babies together? I’ll never know because love is more about just biology and chemistry, sometimes even when two people seem so right for each other, it can still go so wrong.

Mothers - Maria Robinson

Ben's relationship with his mother was like a cakewalk- sweet,
slippery, perched on the edge of the rim, plumped with air and full of
flavor.

Mother was cinnamon and red wine and Midwestern solid. With
Ben she was forgiving and exacting, encouraging and demanding. She
was all about him and his father. Her tight spirtual journey into her husband's Judaism had made her more confident, more calm and more admired despite the issues she's endured as an African-American woman scientist.

In the end, Ben and his parents were one laboratory that
had studied together and published their findings about the nature of
the world with each other at the dinner table, night after night.

Mothers - Nancy Cech

I wake up in the middle of the night out of a deep hard sleep. Wide awake at 3am. 5 minutes later my text alert goes off. My phone is 2 floors away, but I hear the alarm. I get up to check, at this time of night it has to be something important. I see my son’s name in the inbox. He’s sleeping over a friend’s house.

“Hi. Are you home?”
“Yes. What’s up?”
“I forgot my inhaler”
“Are you okay? Need me to come.”
“I guess so. Everyone is asleep. Why are you up?”
“Not sure. I was asleep.”
“I thought you’d be asleep.”
“I’m leaving the house now. Be there soon.”
“Okay. What should I do.”
“Wake Chris. Tell him you need to go home. I will be there in 10minutes.”

I leave the house and start the car and make my way to the freeway. The streets are empty. I leave my phone on the seat next to me.

“Mom, let me know when you get close so I can get ready.”
“Ok”
“Are you bringing me my inhaler?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t text and drive.”

This text makes me smile and I wind my way to Mission Street. There’s no one anywhere. I pull up in front of Chris’s house.

“I’m here.”
“k”

He comes down the stairs and gets into the car. Takes his inhaler from my hand and takes a long draw. There’s immediate relief on his face. Not just because of the albueterol, but the stress is gone. He doesn’t have to worry anymore, his safety net is there.

“Thanks mom. How did you know to wake up?”

“I’m your mom, son. The ties go deep.”

“I love you mom. Look it’s 3:30. Happy Mother’s Day.”

And he’s right, almost every day is a happy mother’s day.

Mothers - E. D. James

Maybe it was because she was an only child of a woman whose husband had died young leaving her with the responsibilities of life. Olivia had the impression that there had not been an excess of joy and love in her mothers home. Life had been hard day to day. Maybe it was that she was so beautiful that people set her apart. Men pursued her, including Olivias father, thinking that with her on their arm they would be the envy of their peers. What they found was that they could not possess her, could not penetrate that emotional armor she wore. What was she protecting herself from? Each of these men had given her all the material support she could ever want or need. Each of these men had, at least at the start, been wild in their expressions of affection and love. But none of them had ever penetrated that wall of control.

Olivia had seen it slip only once, briefly. At the wedding of the daughter of a childhood friend. It had been a lovely affair on a sunny spring day. Oyster bar, champagne flowing, a great jazz band laying out swing tunes. Olivia watched from the sidelines as her mother got into dancing with a man she had dated back in high school. As the hour progressed that wall sagged and Olivia could see happiness and joy beginning to radiate from her mother. Then, at the end of a lindy, the man reached out hugged her in a spontaneous moment of affection and there it was, the wall, back again.

What worried Olivia most of all was the fear that maybe it was genetic. That the ability to truly connect in love was just missing her moms makeup and that missing gene had been passed to her and she in turn had passed it to Olivia. Olivia had friends, plenty. She had lovers, plenty. But so far in her thirty two years she had never been touched and felt joined in a relationship. Sometimes hurt, sometimes hurting, but never simply connected. Her mother had died alone finally. Her beauty and her accumulated wealth intact. But alone.

Drowning - Judy Albietz

“Can you save these fish?” Bakari asked his mother, Isis. They were both standing on the edge of the Ebony River, where dozens of fish had thrown themselves up on the rocks. Other fish lay dead on their sides in the mud.

Tears running down her cheeks, Isis said, “I don’t know. I’ll try.” A medicine monkey, she had been trained to heal all living creatures. She knelt down and picked up one of the fish which was flopping in the mud. Then she gently placed it back in the water but it jumped back to the riverbank. Its gills looked as if they were trying to suck in air. Desperately trying to keep alive, its bright colors were already fading. Isis reached her other hand into the rushing water to sense if something in the water was killing the fish. With sad eyes, she turned back to her small son. She could tell from the look on his face that this too was a scene he had seen before—in one of his visions. “The water looks and feels clear. There’s plenty of dissolved oxygen in the water for the fish. And I can’t detect poison—or anything that could have caused this,” she said.

Isis then sat back on the muddy reeds as she gently held the dying fish in both hands. Bakari stayed at her side while she hummed the notes of an ancient healing melody. Then Bakari saw them—images swirling around them. These were faces in his mother’s medicine vision. She was linking her mind to her Medicine Monkey ancestors. Bakari at first was scared that his growing powers now enabled him to share her visions. Then he felt a calm warmth spread over him. He knew it was his mother’s heart reaching out to shield him.

Isis stroked the fish, willing it back to life, but finally she stopped humming when she saw the fish was now still in her hands. She walked over to the river’s edge and bent over to place it back down with the others. Then, wrapping her arms around Bakari, she said, “Something very wrong is happening. These fish are jumping out of the river and dying. They can’t breathe out of the water because they have gills, not lungs. But for some reason they think they can’t stay in the river so now—here on land—they’re drowning in the air.”

Drowning - Donna Shomer

And I am
There is no question about it
Drowning in the restless sea of cliché
Merciless thrum of academia
Relentless push/pull of time
Stench of gravity
Self-absorbed I am
Rife with possibility
I am Being – which is only
The beginning but I am tired –
Tired.

Happy Now? (Wild Desire) - Anne Wright

The first time I saw Will he was standing in front of the big glass windows that overlooked the forest. He was looking intently through the trees. I remember wondering what he saw there, back beyond the ones illuminated by floodlights, back where you couldn’t see anything at all except rich black velvet. His arms were folded across his chest, and his shirt, a dark washed silk stretched across his back and shoulders, tucked into black jeans. I stood back from him, giving myself a chance to look. At that moment I didn’t know he was Will. All I knew was that he was a man alone, and he wished he were not here. I knew exactly how he felt. The people at the party were getting on my nerves, especially the slim alligator-faced man sitting on the couch, his arm draped ever so carefully on the top of the cushions, edging closer to the blond woman next to him, the one in a short red skirt she kept pulling at, adjusting it as it crawled up her thighs. And Diana, her fawning crowd of fans gaping at her while she proclaimed that art had to have a political message. Diana, dressed in a thousand dollar gown, telling them that rich is wrong.

The man at the window turned. He must have felt my eyes on the gentle curve of his back, the way his jeans followed the curve of his rear and enveloped his lean long legs. I caught myself: lean long legs. Why do I do that? It is so distracting. I just want to see him turn around, see his eyes for the first time.

Happy Now? - Camilla Basham

My father was a third generation drunk who would later express no desire to redress his ancestry. His speech deliberate, his mannerisms quirky, his intentions as stale as day old bread. My mother’s solace was found in Sunday mass, his in Friday night pool halls; her redemption: the Bible; his: a bottle of Jack. They married and built a crooked little wooden house on a lake, under an old oak tree; thus began the knot in the family tree that sprouted a crooked branch known as my family. My name is Ruthie Richard and I am one of the leaves.

Alcoholism seeped through our family like iodine through the carotid artery of my mother’s slender crepe-like neck; exposing the toxic build-up of years of silence and neglect. The waiting room was cold; the clock ticked away the seconds. A solitary roach lying prostate fought for his life on the otherwise barren floor. The operating room door swung open slamming him against the wall - a welcomed end to his suffering. I sat alone, motionless, sleep deprived staring at a bag of M&M’s that clung on for dear life, despite the likely shaking from an impatient youth, to the coil inside a snack-dispensing machine.

“Ms. Richard?” She wore nurse scrubs depicting whimsical characters dancing upon her torso; empathetic eyes and frown lines of a woman twice her age.

I wanted to pretend I didn’t hear her. The M&M bag finally came loose and hit the dispensing tray, jarring me back to reality. It was nine in the morning, but I suddenly wanted a drink. I wanted to say, “I’ll have a Belvedere martini, three olives, straight up, shaken not stirred.” Instead, I said what any normal person would say, “Yes?”

Creative Caffeine: Happy now?
Camilla Basham
05.12.10

Going Deeper - Camilla Basham

Inhale. Focus. Exhale. Squeeze. It’s how you do a proper stomach crunch. Its how you pull a trigger and blow someone’s head off.

If you could spy on me in my bed tonight, you’d see me awake, focusing on Tim’s left temple.

To him I’m honey. To his unfortunate offspring I’m mom. To their friends I’m Mrs. Magnuson. To my acquaintances I’m Lola. To Aaban I am فرشته (angel). To my parents I am dead.

I keep my Sig in a Tampax box in the top drawer of my side table. Tim would never look inside. Feminine hygiene products terrify him. If he only knew.

If you watched from above, you would see him wake to find me staring at him. He thinks I lie awake smiling at him because I’m so fucking in love. I’m really imagining his stirrup bone hitting my face.

If you could go even deeper - straight through me and under the bed – you’d find a locked box. In that box: a fake passport, untraceable cell phone and the right thumb of ex FBI agent, Jennifer James, sawed off just above the second knuckle.

Going Deeper - E. D. James

Jose Tomas stood in center of the arena as he had a thousand times before. This was his kingdom. Here he ruled. In his suit of lights he controlled a ritual as ancient as the civilization that inhabited the Mediterranean. From the bull jumpers of Crete to the matadors of Spain man had demonstrated his mastery of his environment in these tests of strength and will. The sun beat hot and the murmur of the crowd was increasing in intensity for Jose was the star attraction. A man whose skill and passion and grace had taken him to the top of the ranks. Today he faced his opponent utterly confident that he would prevail. The beast was magnificent. Bloodied but not humbled by the picadors. The brightly colored banderillas bobbed from just behind his neck. He held his head slightly lower now than he had at the beginning of the match. During the tanda Jose had seen that the bull favored his left, and now, as he faced the bull for the final dance with death, he would take advantage of this habit to find the opening for the estocada, the thrust of the sword over the head and through the neck to the heart. The roars of the crowd faded from Jose’s ears and it was just he and this primal creature. Nothing to protect either one other than their intensity and singular focus on the moment. A moment that might lead to death of either one. The bull lowered his head and charged. Jose stepped to his right and took small steps to adjust his body to that his arm could reach between the horns to thrust the sword while his body was safely to the right side of the outstretched horns. Seconds became milliseconds, every breath and movement of the bull was magnified as Jose concentrated on the spot where he would slide the blade and suddenly, inexplicably, the bull lowered his head even more and thrust to right. Jose felt the brutal impact as the horn torn through his thigh and the pulled him up and over his head.

Going Deeper - Nancy Cech

Karyn had been planning this adventure for months. She refused to call it a vacation. That sounded so insignificant, like a tour of Disneyworld or something you do at a pool with a sugary drink in hand. No, this was meant to be bigger than that. A trip that would go deep and stir her soul, change her outlook, provide a new lens in which to examine her life. It started out with a trip to Distant Lands travel store, nothing more that. Nothing more than to be surrounded by maps and books and photos of far away worlds. Worlds so very different from her own. Something as different as it could be than being a middle school teacher in Pasadena.

The sections in the store all carefully arranged to be geographically correct. So instead of Africa, America(s), Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe being in alphabetical order they are arranged in relationship to each other. So you could travel the world literally by walking the story. The layout had her wandering in circles. A photo of an Italian countryside would call to across the store while thumbing through a book on the Seychelles. She wishes her friend Sadie was with her so she could share her observations “Isn’t funny how most of the continents start with the letter A. All but Europe, which I guess just had to be different and doesn’t really seem to deserve the title of continent. It’s so small and just bleeds out of Asia.” So there the adventure started in the section of America (south), deep in the stacks with a book titled Fitzroy and a beckoning call to Patagonia.

The Last Thing She Expected - Elizabeth Weld Nolan

The last thing she expected
was me bouncing in off the street
you strolling in from the airport
him roaring up on his mo-mo-motocycle
her descending from her gauzy attic
them - little - playing on the floor
the dogs jumping in from the greeny yard
the cats wandering in surprised by company.
The last thing she expected was all of us
moving to an unseen rhythm, answering
an unsung call to come home, make
a feast, turn on the music, dance in circles
around and around her until she grew dizzy
with song and wine and moving feet
and threw her arms around us all
and cried for plain old joy.

The Last Thing She Expected - Jackie Davis-Martin

The last thing Virginia expected was Stewart’s silence on the matter. She’d braced herself to see him sitting in the chair waiting and had even rehearsed her lines: “I know you don’t approve, but I think it will be fun. I need you to take in my lesson plans for my afternoon classes. The seniors will be with me.” She’d said them several times in the car.

But the living room was empty except for sound. The plaintive sounds of “La Traviata” soared through the house, including of course, this stage set of a room. Things were tidied up as always, although a paper flower, she now noted, had been stranded under one end table: a bouffant, abandoned white chrysanthemum. Virginia stood in the middle of the room, clutching her school satchel and her handbag, setting down neither. The opera was somewhere in its second half, the music sad and beseeching, and for a moment it disoriented her altogether.

Okay: she was going to see Henry tomorrow, for sure; that fool Tom had made a pass; her husband was downstairs, no doubt angry again; she owned a one-piece bathing suit somewhere (where?) that she had to find: where to start?

She started with the Edward Hopper book, which she realized was among the thick books on the coffee table’s lower shelf. Stewart had chosen those books because of the color of their jackets to be permanent fixtures. There it was: Office at Night: the man, the woman, the paper, a sort of secrecy.

The metallic rattle of a cocktail shaker advanced on her, Stewart was using both hands, the shaker at head level right, then left, like some aberration of a Jamaican dancer, and advancing on her. “So, you’re home,” he said. “At last.”

Close up Virginia could see that he’d probably already had at least one martini already.

“And studying,” he observed, leaning over her open book. “Very impressive.”

Virginia slammed it closed and heaved it back to its place, relaxing a bit. Stewart’s sarcasm was a weak and familiar weapon; surely he had an additional arsenal. She waited, braced this time, to defend herself. She was an independent agent, she’d say; she could go on a school trip if she wanted.

Stewart returned to the kitchen, poured his drink, and went back downstairs.

That’s where the bathing suit was--downstairs in the trunk in the laundry room, where she stored summer stuff. She followed him down. The family room (they actually called it that, family room) was in an imposed twilight with the drapes drawn. Stewart sat upright with his drink on his chair, strategically placed to absorb all four speakers at once, like a wax figure (a handsome one) advertising a sound system.

She switched on the light in the laundry room, rifled through the trunk and pulled out a red one-piece she’d bought a few years before. Henry will like this! she thought, and it’ll be modest enough around the legs. She’d do a Nair treatment before bed. In the next room in operatic strains Margarita was dying: she’d sacrificed her one true love. Suddenly Virginia realized that “La Traviata” was about a courtesan, a hooker, for god’s sake. Surely Stewart’s intent.

“Nice choice,” he said, as she traipsed back to the stairs, bathing suit dangling from her hand. “What all instructors should wear to the prom. And red.”

Virginia froze momentarily. Stewart had given her the play of Traviata—libretto, it was called—and knew she knew about the white flowers, the red.

“I have things to do,” she said, heading for the stairs.

He grabbed her by the arm and turned her around. “Have you considered seeing a doctor?” he said.

“How drunk are you?”

“How crazy are you?”

“I have things to do,” she said again, not even pulling away. In an odd way, it was sort of nice to have his fingers wrapped around her forearm; it felt like something that should happen, a physical contact of sorts, husband and wife. Jesus! It’s what they were.

He squeezed harder then released her dramatically. She realized he was waiting for the final chord, timing his gesture, living in some fantasy world. That was the last thing she’d expected, too, that what she was fighting against wasn’t even substantial. What did that say of her?

She’d have to think about it. She had a grip (Ruth, the v.p.’s word) to pack: a grip.

She’d get a grip.

What Was Beautiful - Shonna Anderson

What was beautiful was the way that the light played off the ocean. I’ve always loved the way the sunlight makes everything look in the afternoon. There’s a softness to it that bathes everything in a glow. It’s as though everything is soft around the edges. At the time I was lost in my thoughts, but the beauty of the afternoon light was something that even in that depressed state I couldn’t deny. I looked out at the waves crashing on the shore with the little beads of sunlight dancing on the surface and felt a small sense of peace. My world was not completely cold and grey, I could still sense the beauty in the afternoon. My favorite time of the day still captivated me, still stirred my soul.

What Was Beautiful - Judy Radin

The moon is full
The sun is near
Dead of winter, and
No one is here

Only us
And a handful of others, were
Brought inside the fence
At dawn

The hills are green
The plains are vast and
Empty

Empty for miles
Empty for centuries
Ancestors whisper
Acknowledge our presence

Magical Stonehenge
Embraces us with arms
Fully extended.

What Was Beautiful - Judy Albietz

Isis led her small son Bakari into the new world. They were in the first group of Blue Monkeys to go through the Time Portal into the future. Still holding tightly to Bakari’s little hand, Isis breathed a sigh of relief. They had made it. They had escaped the volcano.

Looking around, Isis gasped at the beauty around them. They were standing on a hill, under a canopy of large graceful green and lavender trees. In addition to branches and leaves, the trees had gauzy fronds which waved in the warm breezy air, sending off tiny sparkles in the sunlight. Familiar salty ocean scents mixed with new ones of delicate flowers. Down below, a vast basin of blue water stretched out to the ocean. The water was so clear Isis could see to the sandy bottom. There was music in the air, a soothing melody of chiming notes which appeared to come from the strange trees.

Isis looked down at Bakari and smiled. He saw it too. This was exactly as he had described it—the world in the future. Everyone knew that Bakari had visions. Ever since he had learned to walk he had talked about pictures in his head. Recently the visions had become more specific and clear. Alarmed, his mother took him to the Elder Blue Monkeys. Bakari told them about his visions of seismic disturbances which would be warnings about the island’s volcano waking up and killing all life on the island. He told them about a future, five thousand years away, when it would be safe for the Blue Monkeys families to live. Then, when small earthquakes began to shake the ground and gases seeped up through cracks in the earth, the Elder Blue Monkeys listened more carefully to the seven-year-old boy. They knew it was time to use the Time Portal to leave Borealis before it was too late.

What Was Beautiful - Melody Cryns

It was beautiful when Mike H. sat on my couch in my cluttered living room, my classical acoustic guitar lying across his lap so that he could play one-handed because of his stroke a year ago which paralyzed the left side of his body – plucking notes on the guitar and singing songs that he wrote many years ago to me. I could feel and hear the fun in some of the songs and the heart-felt emotion in others. It was like my own private show and I could not have been more delighted when Mike H. said last Thursday night while we sat at the coffee shop, “I’d like to play you some songs that I wrote – or rather sing them because I’m not playing too much anymore.” He smiled that beautiful smile of his and pointed to his left arm.

It made me sad thinking of how difficult it must be for Mike not to play his instruments – the bass, the guitar, mandolin, banjo, ukulele, you name it. But I didn’t let on – I could tell he was covering up his own frustration and sadness. As we sat at Dana Street Roasting, my favorite coffee shop where I actually met Mike H. for the first time in early December, smelling the roasted coffee beans, we both talked and laughed.

Mike shared with me that a cop took his handicapped placard away.

“What the heck?” I said, more than a little surprised. Mike’s left leg is paralyzed and he sort of has to drag it along with the help of a cane – and now they took his handicapped placard away? I mean, if anyone needs one, he certainly does.

“Yeah, it’s a pain. The DMV was supposed to send me a new one, but it has yet to arrive.”

I thought of people who probably have handicapped placards when they don’t really need one – and here this guy is literally dragging his leg. I’m always freaked out each time Mike H. descends upon the stairs leading up to my apartment – I’m sure they’re treacherous for him, yet he does it – he gets himself up and down the stairs (he says getting down them is hardest).

I was thrilled when Mike H. said he wanted to share some of his music with me. It had meaning to me – he’s infiltrating my life in mellow and unexpected ways, and I dig it. Sometimes I long for it to be more, yet I don’t say that to Mike. I was thrilled when he showed up unexpectedly at Coyote Stage Stop a week prior and got to meet my friend Heidi who was visiting from Washington.

We stayed at the coffee shop for what seemed like hours before finally making our way outside. Mike moves pretty well for a guy who’s paralyzed, his tall and mighty six foot four frame leaning against his cane – yet one can still feel his strength.

Mike only says what he means, straight and to the point. He never does or says anything without thinking about it, and he explained how when he writes a song, he thinks about every word and every note…that only rarely has he been able to just come up with an entire song in no time at all, but it has happened.

So I’m taking in what Mike H. has to offer me – and even playing the beautiful baritone ukulele he gave me. And, in return, Mike H. sang me songs.

I can still see him stretched out on the loveseat with guitar in lap, plucking notes on the guitar in a wonderfully beautiful and unique one-handed way, his lovely voice resounding through my living room – he can sing a low baritone and he can sing the high falsetto notes and everything in between – it was his deep baritone voice that caught my ear when I walked into the coffee shop that early December evening – singing harmony with the other Irish folk singers, his voice louder and more resounding than the rest, so much so that he didn’t even need a microphone.

And when he sang that song about his childhood friend, Roberta, hearing him sing it and the story of his true childhood friend, and how they never had the guts to tell each other how they felt, it truly touched my heart because I remembered my own childhood friend whom I felt the same way about – and that tiny pain will always remain in my heart as well – and it sounded beautiful…I could hear the story, feel the music inside me…and look right into Mike’s blue eyes as he sang…

and nothing could be more beautiful at that moment in time.

What Was Beautiful - Maria Robinson

Vera returned to the scene of the crime with Sean. Miami Beach and the Art Basel Art Fair. This time she was alone and taking in the scene of German, British and French dealers now selling to Russians and Eastern Europeans and Scandinavians who had come to enjoy the sun and bask in there new-found "importance."

She loved seeing the swagger of over-top-money lubricated out of its pockets for art concepts that one could barely explain short of a few cocktails. The Brazilians were more calculating. Knowing that they would not part with their cash, they dressed to the hilt, tans and silicone boobs all ranked out, snorted coke and bought nothing. The South Americans were exasperating for the Europeans if only for their colossal ability to distract other paying clients from closing deals.

What was beautiful was the way that the Brits were cold in shutting them out, raking in their take and then heading for the beach. Just as Sean had done. The French were to epitome of diplomacy always gently explaining that they were busy and showing the South Americans the door. The Germans were forthright, and forward and simply told the Samba Crew that they were out of their league and then ignored them.

Vera loved the great culture clashes that smashed together people around art and ideas and money. Most evenings, alone, thinking of Andre, she drank Mojitos overlooking the pool where she'd swam with Sean and then cuddled in the sun. It was what was and now she needed to face the next morning.

Take a Risk - Karen Oliver

I don’t usually take risks, or actually I do but I don’t think of them as risks because I always think that somehow I have the strength, skill, moxie or whatever it takes to succeed despite the odds. This has been proven true enough times to support my omnipotence theory and proven not true enough to throw me writhing to the ground.

When I married my husband I was a single mother of a 7- year- old daughter, Sally. Charley had two children whose mother, his ex-wife, was dying of cancer and we knew they would be coming to live with us and wanted a family structure to greet them, hence marriage. Up until then, one of my life promises to myself was not to ever have four children, like my beleaguered mother. How was I to know I would immediately get pregnant, adding the fourth? Ah, fate.

As I considered this marriage, I went to see a psychic. I know, half of you will roll your eyes. However, when faced with a situation you cannot understand with conventional methods, why not? Hazel, no joke, a gorgeous, tall and slender beauty with a throaty Joan Fontaine voice, listened carefully to me on the phone. I described my wish and intention to care for these children in their grief, to provide a family and support for my daughter whose father had left us, to create a family with this man I loved. She listened carefully and said she completely understood, I remember the line, that I “wanted to spread my large wings and protect these children” but she said it would not turn out like that. There were a lot of forces acting here independently of my wishes and it would not flow together harmoniously, despite my best intentions. Did I believe her? No, not really. I thought that I could do it, she just didn’t know me well enough. Talk about egomania. I took the risk and didn’t turn back. With my skills, degrees in psychology, love and generosity, spiritual practice, good intentions and love and dogged persistence – how could I fail?

Life has a way of humbling us. I think that is why we have children. I have been humbled and also proven victorious. In the end, with all four adults now, they have turned out well, love one another pretty much, and definitely see themselves as a family. I took the risk. I just didn’t realize that I was risking my personal strength, risking my Pollyanna view of the world, risking my sense of omnipotence. Now I know my limits and wouldn’t have it any other way.

It Was the Lie He Told Me - Anne Wright

I really don’t think it’s snooping when I get that twenty from his wallet, and take a few moments to stick my fingers in the slots behind the credit cards, and look into the other recesses. Who knows? I might find a receipt that should go in our envelope of IRS deductions. But what I do find is a foil wrapped condom and a slip of paper from a fortune cookie that has a phone number on it. Finding this condom makes me so upset that I tear it open and take it from the wrapping and tie it into about ten knots. Then I lay it on the kitchen table, slick and limp and knotted, where he will see it when he comes home. In all our fifteen years of marriage, I have never found anything suspicious at all in his pockets or wallet. Who does he think he’s kidding? I had my tubes tied after Zoe was born so we don’t need this.

The phone number on the fortune cookie paper has a San Francisco area code. Who in hell would he have Chinese food with and want to have sex with him? If anybody had ever seen John eat with chopsticks, they would never ever want to go to bed with him. He can’t even get the chopsticks to pick up a pot sticker. He stabs it in the side and then puts the whole think in his mouth. That is enough to turn your stomach. In fact, I remember on Tuesday, his shirt had a big stain of something red on it. That must have been the day he went to the Chinese place. He always manages to drip sauce down his front. It looked like sweet and sour sauce.

I think I’m going to call this number tomorrow. It’s too late right now. He will be home from work in half an hour. I want to see the look on his face when he sees the condom. Give him a little time to suffer, wish he hadn’t forgotten his wallet this morning, see if the slip from the fortune cookie is still in there. It won’t be.

Swimming Underwater - Anne Wright

The summer Lily turned eleven, her parents took her and her brother to the lake for their annual vacation. She hadn’t even swum in real water, just the chlorinated pool at the high school where she took lessons, so she felt cautious about the pebbly sand and the lapping of water around her feet. She could see a wooden dock floating a little ways out, and kids were jumping off, trying to make big splashes, hooting, laughing and back stroking in the distance.

She was a good swimmer in the pool at home. She could push off one blue concrete side, plunge under the aqua water and pull herself underwater with mermaid’s arms and frog’s legs, all the way to the other. She had done it so often that she didn’t even gasp when she came up, and she could turn around, take ten deep breaths and do it again. This was what she knew how to do, all alone.

She walked with pinched steps into the lake, holding her arms together on her chest. The water was chilly. When the bottom of her bathing suit got wet she stood for a moment, waiting, cooling her body and decided to dive, do it all at once. She took ten breaths and pointed her arms into the cerulean sky and jumped in, in an arc, then pulled her arms and stayed under as long as she could stand it. She opened her eyes, and instead of the black lane lines of the pool, she saw a clear, blue brown background of sparkling sand suspended, and some big black rocks. She wanted to swim underwater forever.

Going Backwards - Maria Robinson

Andre at 60 began unwinding his life: How invincible he felt at 45 with three major diplomatic postings notched up and a civilized Parisian divorce.

Then, free, delving into the sensual, the languorous afternoon in North Africa and the women from around the world, female academics being a favored conquest. But, another marriage to an English Oxonian who lacked his libertine values. They partied for awhile. She fled willingly back to her ex. The children from the first marriage, grew, spent summers with him as they hiked summers in the Atlas Mountains and tanned to a caramel gold. A short third marriage to an American heiress, disastrous after only sixty days. She thought him willing to be an American sop, but, he was after all French and very experienced. Annulled with no alimony in HIS favor. Finally a passage of peace, time on the Atlantic coast of Morocco and then a soiree where he met Vera, a potter, a lawyer, newly of Santa Fe New Mexico, lately of Berkeley, CA and all brain and creativity without the cunning.

Going Backwards - Karen Oliver

Every inch of the house and land was being preened and fluffed and polished. Men sprayed oil on the log sides of the house, roofers roofed and gardeners gardened. No one had loved this house in 40 years and it had almost died but now it was being loved again. Old photos were looked through to find its history and to see what was original to keep. Old doors and carvings were saved and cleaned and used again. Every bit of its beauty was illuminated, special lights showing off its hidden details. It was new and fresh now but the strong feeling was of going backwards to reclaim the past and place this small piece of once-beloved art back on the pedestal it deserved.

Going Backwards - Nancy Cech

I scan the room looking for familiar faces. What was I thinking? I barely knew anyone 20 years ago when I was still in High School, much less now. I had a few close friends that I still kept in touch with and none of them wanted to attend this reunion. So I here I am at the country club, a glass of red wine in one hand, and an adhesive backed “My Name is..” sticker on my chest. The women all looked great. Tan and taut. Tennis had served them well. The guys? Well there were a few too many crushed velvet jackets that had found their way out of the closet. And unfortunately many of them no longer closed across the bellies.

“Why are you going? You didn’t like them then. Why go now?” I couldn’t answer the questions my friends asked. What was this pull to go backwards. It was like one of the rip tides at the beach near my middle school. I spent ages 11 to 13 at a school overlooking one of the most beautiful beaches on the Pacific Coast. Close enough you could run across the street and down to the beach before the lunch bell rang. I had been known as one of the cliff dwellers. We hung out at the beach teaching each other how to roll joints and to talk about sex. RAT beach, that’s where we hung out, which was named for “right after torrance” not the obvious answer. That deceptive current at that cove that could take you out to sea in a minute if you didn’t pay close attention.

So what drew me back? It was the first time visiting since I left for college. Malls filled the fields where we grazed the horses. The bridle trail which served as the median for the primary drives looked like an air strip. Once canopied by eucalyptus trees, the trails were now surrounded by tent poles. The borer beetle had come through and stripped most of the trees bare. What was once the lush textured memories of my childhood now looked like Mount St Helens.

A woman comes up to me slowly, calls my name and gives me a hug. “Oh I’ve been wanting to thank you for years. You don’t know how much our friendship meant to me. You were there when I most needed someone the most. I was a mess when I was going through that with thing with my mom. Thank you. Thank you. You saved me. I don’t think I would have made it without you.” I look into her face searching for clues. How could I have forgotten something that was so vitally important to someone else. Some of the memories slowly came back. Her name. Sitting in the library during lunch together. Her hair. Her hair was exactly the same. But I couldn’t remember her pain. Was it because my own at the time was such a rich pool that hers seemed like a puddle? Or had too much time passed.

I expected a “reunion” to do that “re” unite me with my past, that I would find some anchors in there. Instead I found that going back was more like going backwards and i wanted nothing to do with it.

Going Backwards - Melody Cryns

This morning as I look out the kitchen windows at the lush green leaves of the trees and I realize that instead of going forward today when I read from my creative thesis, I’m going backwards. So many people are going to be there to listen to me read about things that happened to me and to the kids in the past. I haven’t even perfected what I’m going to read yet, am still figuring out exactly what to read and how it’s going to play out. I feel like a young kid again nervous to be in a play or in a show. Who am I to do this? How am I worthy?

So my friend Heidi is visiting from Washington, my long-time friend. Instead of taking her to San Francisco, the beach and Golden Gate Park, I ended up taking her to Coyote Stage Stop way down Monterey Road where the bikers hang out on nice days – I wanted to meet all of my friends – Debby and Vikki and Mike Sult, my long-time guitar teacher, and all of my musician friends. We sat in a semi-dark room with the front doors wide open looking out on to the golden greenish hills beyond and listened to the Rhythm District play their off-the-wall rhythmic music, feeling the beat and hearing Mike Sult expertly play those lead guitar riffs while Mario tinkled away on the keyboards, and young Jeremy, who is even younger than my son Jeremy, expertly keep beat with the drums. I think Heidi was digging it. She said she wanted to go out because she never gets to while she’s up in Washington, so she’s getting a chance to go out. My friend Vikki showed up and she and I hugged her. We all sat at the same round table and Vikki and Debby thought it was funny to wear sun glasses because the sun is pouring in from the front doors.

My friends from a band that calls themselves After Sunset began to arrive, Larry and Mike Silva and Duane, the big guy who plays a mean bass, and Jason, their young drummer. Larry plays an amazing lead guitar, and I’ve been watching as their band begins to become more and more emeshed and better and better all the time. I really like Larry because he loves the Beatles and the Beatles jam night at Woodham’s was his idea.

So we all sat there having a good time when suddenly Vikki said, “Oh look, your friend is here.

My friend?

I turned around and who walked in but a very disheveled and tired-looking Mike Halloran. I had texted him days earlier while he was at this songwriter’s conference in LA that me and my friends would most likely be hanging at Coyote’s Stage Stop on Sunday afternoon. I’d never heard back and I had no idea what day he was driving back, so you can imagine how excited I was to see Mike – my special guy friend whom I don’t get to see that much. I keep thinking every time I see him, okay this is it. I’m probably not going to see him again. But then he does something sweet like give me a beautiful baritone ukulele, which I’ve already been playing. So far I can play three or four songs pretty well, including Something and Lady Madonna – Beatles songs. Then I left for my adventure in Reno and Virginia City and he went on his own adventure to the songwriter’s conference in LA – when I ran up and hugged and kissed him and then led him to a seat right next to mine, after introducing him to my long-time friend Heidi who gushed about what a loyal friend I was (so embarrassing, but cute nonetheless), he told me, all red faced and smiling that the songwriter’s conference was the best one he’d been to in 20 year. He met so many awesome people and attended the big party that lasted until 3am and just had a fabulous time. I told him I was glad and we sat close together and he put his arm around me as if we were boyfriend and girlfriend – even though I have no idea what we are or aren’t, but I guess it doesn’t matter. He didn’t mind that my friend Heidi took pictures of us and said we looked really sweet together. Heidi and I talked about some of the crazy things we’d done and how we followed each other around the world for 20 years because our husbands were in the military. Good times.

Surrounded by my closest friends, I felt braver than I’ve been feeling lately, not feeling worthy to stand at a podium at 5pm tonight and read from my own writing, picking out which pieces I think are best, not really sure which ones would go over the best.
It’s a beautiful spring day, time for reading about the past yet striving for the future.

Walking Backwards - Elizabeth Weld Nolan

When the big toe reaches back,
supporting knee slightly bent,
the very space behind
seen as oblique from the eye’s corner
opens in air and shadow and light
informing the brain of the body’s
circumference that it is 360 degrees
and not flat front or flat back
and that one twist of the hip
arms swaying like parachute bones
turns back into front and so
it starts again

What I Found There - Judy Albietz

I can always find my mom in that old jewelry box, the one I keep on my dresser. She couldn’t take her jewelry with her, not even her wedding ring. She had to leave it all with me. Most is what she called costume jewelry—not valuable but fun to wear. Last Sunday I opened the box and immediately spotted the dream-catcher earrings which I had given her when I was in college. I put them on. I looked in the mirror. You know, I’m starting to look like her. I decided that’s not a bad thing.

This morning I rummaged through the pins, necklaces, earrings, bracelets and necklaces, finally taking a brightly-colored necklace out of the box. There couldn’t be anything more cheerful to wear. The large beads are yellow, pink, green and bright blue. A large yellow pendant, about two inches long, sits in the middle. It’s shaped like a cactus with narrow blue, pink and green stripes. Four other smaller pendants are spaced evenly among the beads: a green and yellow star, a pink snake, a blue quarter moon, and a piece of yellow fruit, could be a banana or a yellow squash.

I have no idea where she got that necklace. She never told me. And now there’s no way to find out. When I had the chance to ask her, I didn’t. I remember that day. I was holding the necklace in my hand. I didn’t ask her about it. I wanted to think that there would always be time to ask.

What She Found There - Judy Radin

On the day she didn’t die Joanna thought about changing her name. She’d just turned thirty, which sounded very old, but she felt like a newborn. After a lifetime of believing that one day she would kill herself, suddenly she didn’t want to die. But her platelets were falling and the Prednisone wasn’t working. Everyone around her knew where things were heading: cerebral hemorrhage and then death.

But somehow she pulled through – and it wasn’t the medicine. Joanna knew that even if no one else agreed. She’d been on Prednisone for weeks and nothing had changed. She continued spiking high fevers several time each day, which had to be brought down to normal with ice packs and aspirin.

Then Joanna’s doctor told her she would have to do a bone marrow test if Joanna’s platelets didn’t start rising. Maybe there was more going on then an autoimmune reaction. Just the thought of that long needle piercing her hip to extract bone marrow made her cringe – not to mention that on top of lupus she might have leukemia, too.
That night, Joanna had a long talk with herself. There was no way she was going to let this happen. Not leukemia, not a bone marrow test. Not after all she’d been through already. She repeated this mantra over and over and over in her head, all night long. Even when her fever rose to 104 at 3 AM g she repeated it to herself. Even when they filled her bed with ice packs and ice cubes, she repeated her mantra. Within 24 hours her fevers became less frequent and her platelets started to rise.

The doctors assumed the Prednisone was finally working, but Joanna knew the truth. She knew it was her will. She felt it that night and she could still feel it. She knew she had inner resources that could move mountains. Nothing was out of her reach. She would get well, get out of the hospital, and get herself back to Berkeley. That’s when it came to her that she wanted to change her name, to mark the occasion of her rebirth. Her new name would reflect her new inner strength.

She decided to take her great-grandmother’s maiden name. Joanna’s grandmother adopted the name when she emigrated from Lithuania to New York at the turn of the twentieth century. She was only seventeen and she was leaving her family and her village to find a better life with more opportunities for education and independence. Joanna thought of her grandmother and it just clicked. As soon as she was well enough, she would go to court and also take that name, to honor her grandmother and all her female ancestors who also had to dig deep and find inner strength in order to survive in a world with many obstacles.

What I Found There - Rebecca Link

Once we had visited the Board Of Education for referrals we had permission to visit four children in the orphanage called House of Perm in Russia. We could have also visited the orphanage in Kungor but that is where Alonya was and I didn’t want to see her if I couldn’t have her.

I had no idea what to expect. It was in July and the temperature was well into the nineties. Our driver pulled up to the front of the orphanage. The building was two stories and painted white. There was a sidewalk in front with a black wrought iron fence surrounding the property. All of the windows were open with no screens. The white lace curtains blew in and out of each window. I could hear children and babies from the street. Some crying and some just talking but it heightened my awareness of these children that were left alone. As we approached the front door I could feel my emotions starting to swell. It was sad thinking of all these children without families. I was instructed that I shouldn’t show a lot of emotion in front of the children. It could upset them and make them feel something was wrong. All I could think is how am I not going to respond to all of this.

The doctor, a very strong and handsome man met us at the front door. He was kind and smiling. As we walked in we saw many large cribs with about ten children to a crib. The children were all in old cotton diapers and nothing else. It was hot so I’m sure that would be best for them not to have much clothing on. I have never seen so many children grouped together. It was very clean and organized. Lydia was one of the nurses who looked after the children. She looked very pleased we were there. I felt nervous and wanted to cry. I didn’t expect it to be this traumatic and emotional. All these children looking up at me with searching eyes made my heart ache for them. What I found there were so many precious children, children if I had the means I would scoop up in a bus and take home.

What She Found There - E. D. James

Duloo reached into the far dark reaches of the cabinet and pulled out a rectangular metal tin about a foot square. The colorful Cyrillic lettering on the lid of the tin meant nothing to Olivia but the pictures of iced cookies gave her a clue as to its original use. After all this it was hardly likely that Duloo was handing her stale cookies.

“I collected these from the Ice Horse and saved them as I was instructed by Andrei Moiseyev,” Duloo said. “He told me to save them for the day his son would come in search of him, but now it seems he will never come and that you will know what to do.”

Duloo bowed slightly, almost ceremonially, as he handed the tin to Olivia. She thought of the risks the man had taken to collect whatever was in the tin and the watchful waiting he patiently endured to finally fulfill Andrei’s wishes. The tin, in contrast to its colorful decoration, felt dense and heavy in her hands. She felt a mixture of sadness that Alexis was not the one holding his fathers legacy and excitement over the fact that whatever was in the tin may hold the key to unraveling the mystery of the dying cranes.

She sat down on the huge dusty old couch that took most of the common room of Duloos cabin. She balanced the tin on her knees and began to work the lid, pulling on the rolled ridge along the bottom, wedging her fingers in to get leverage to pull it up and fraction of an inch on one side, rotate, a fraction of an inch on the other side, rotate. Each begrudging movement of the lid on one side seemed to be countered by it falling or wedging on the other side. The process wasn’t helped by the shaking in her hands. Finally she got one corner up to the top of the body and was able to get a finger underneath and pull the lid off.

The tin was filled with yellowed, lined paper. On the top sheet, written in French, the opening sentence read, “This is the story of Lev Shulman”. She rustled through the pages stopping to read the first lines. As far as she could tell there were perhaps a hundred or more of pages similar to the first but with different names – Vladimir Andronov, Vitus Jablonski – they went on and on. It was dizzying.

She plunged her hands to the bottom and felt a packet. She pulled up the individual sheets and an envelope crudely constructed from scraps of paper lay there. The two words scrawled on the front in the same hand as all the other sheets were, “Alexis Moiseyev”.

Underwater - Shonna Anderson

When I was young I used to love pretending I was a mermaid. I loved to submerge myself underwater during bath time and hold my breath as I pretended that I was a beautiful mermaid princess floating weightlessly in warm bath water. I loved the feeling of being underwater and floating. I loved the way my soft blond hair seemed even finer and silkier when I ran my fingers through it. I loved the way the water enveloped my body in warmth and the way it drowned out the sounds of the outside world. Inevitably though my lungs would scream for air and I’d have to come out of the water, into the harsh lights and sounds of the bathroom.

I have heard that our love of the water goes back to our earliest experiences as human beings, of being in our mother’s womb. Maybe the feeling of security and warmth I felt as I plunged myself under the water somehow reconnected me to a time I don’t consciously remember, a time that was completely safe, before I had any idea of what life had in store for me.

Don't Tell Me Twice - Jackie Davis-Martin

Virginia bundled up the papery flowers and took them back to the car. Why had she brought them in to begin with? Was she going to ask Stewart his opinion of the hall decorations she had in mind? She stood behind her car, one hand on the open trunk—Jonah and the whale—she wanted to be swallowed by something—and marveled that a half hour ago, in the midst of her anxiety over Henry, she had actually considered bringing Stewart into a decision, no matter that it was a small one.

Her car’s place was the driveway extension. Stewart’s car was in the garage and behind the car were suitcases. She brought one into the house, feeling once again displaced in her own life. In movies the suitcase was always in the top of the closet and the person who decided to leave would lift neatly folded shirts from a drawer placing them squarely into the case. If the character walked to the closet to choose a few random dresses, she was always stopped, hangers in hand, by someone.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Stewart said. Virginia was standing at the closet, about to pull skirts away from their clamps. The suitcase on the bed gaped, as the car had. The world was aghast.

“I’m leaving,” Virginia said.

Stewart sank on the bed next to the suitcase, peering into its contents—sleepwear and underwear—pushed and shoved. Virginia could tell what he was thinking: such disarray.
“”Are you now?” he said. He leaned back, arms propping him on diagonals.

He really was a handsome person; she just couldn’t think man. Her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t have to be told twice.” The tears were of frustration; she’d pulled the paisley skirt out—and didn’t even like it—and several others had fallen in a heap on the closet floor on top of her shoes. It was all such a mess.

“No one’s told you once. Told you what? Where the hell do you think you’re going to go?”

“I don’t know. Fran’s tonight—or for a few nights. I’ll find an apartment.”

Stewart laughed, then got up and placed his hands on his hips in a firm gesture of impatience. She thought bizarrely of Aunt Jemima, or an old TV program—Beulah. “You will do no such thing,” he announced. “I will not have you whispering and dragging my name through your disgraces in someone else’s house. You’ll stay right here. I’ll move into the library.”

Stewart called the second bedroom the library because it had bookshelves. She could have said Of course, what difference will it make anyway? but she didn’t. She allowed him the moment.

“I thought you didn’t like that skirt,” he said on his way out.

The pantomime of taking action had distracted her for a while, but now, with twilight descending through the windows, she felt the fear of loss. Henry! What was Henry doing? Would she ever be with him again? She lay on the bed next to her case. This had always been a sad time of day for her. Darkness protected and sunlight brightened. But this! This nether-light, this threatening uncertain neither here-nor-there light, always made her feel incomplete.

She was incomplete. Thirty--with two husbands behind her (oh that the second was that—behind!) a lover belonging to someone else—permitted for the moment to stay in her own house. She flung her arm across the suitcase and cried silently.

The phone on the dresser jarred the silence: once, twice. She couldn’t speak. Suppose it was Stewart’s mother? Or the principal? Stewart picked up downstairs.


“Well, you certainly have a nerve,” he was saying. “Yes. She’s here.”

Virginia rose slowly, as though she would disturb what she thought she heard, and watched herself in the mirror as she cradled the receiver. “Virginia!” Stewart was yelling.
“Guess who.” He slammed his end so resoundingly she heard that, too, in the bedroom.

“Are you there?” Henry whispered. “I’m at a payphone.”

Virginia sank onto the edge of the bed, tears streaming now with relief, with joy.

Don't Tell Me Twice - Kate Sullivan

Don't tell me twice. Don’t tell me twice. That it is stupid. I know this of course. Of course I know this. But it’s not something I need to be told. Out
loud. For I already know. I have known. Known all along. So. I only told someone as not to lie anymore. To myself. To you. To anyone. So how does one get this the first time around? So how does one get this a second time around?

Don’t tell me twice. It’s stupid to have unprotected sex. I know that of course I know. And it usually isn’t a problem. A problem for me. Me it isn’t. It isn’t something I do. Do until I usually know someone. Someone. But how well do we know anyone. Anyone. So I had unprotected sex with someone. Someone I probably shouldn’t. Shouldn’t have. Don't tell me twice. I already know. I already know. Now it was someone I knew. Someone I had been dating for awhile. But it happened. And the good news was. The good news was it was only the beginning. Not the end. The end could make all the difference. Don't tell me twice. I know I could still be pregnant. I know about the possibilities- and the precum stuff- and all the things I am supposed to. Because those are easy to know. But to actually take them into consideration, consideration all the time, all the time is hard. Hard it is to be rational during sex. During sex to be rational is like to ask a woman to stop her love for chocolate or chips or good conversation when she most needs it- yay right.

So I fear pregnancy. Not because I really think I am pregnant. Because not once have I been. Don't tell me twice I know birth control works, for I almost always use it. Use it. When I tell my acupuncturist that I am feeling emotional and she asked me could I be pregnant. I say well yes but no. And then as I lay back as I am poked with the needles in the same spot to calm my mind, to ease the pain in my mouse hand, to stop the possible headache, and to ground me. I wonder, I wonder what if I am pregnant? What if I am pregnant?

When I hit IKEA later with my friend and she drags me literally drags me to Wal-mart. Because I stopped going to Wal-mart- I am a good educated liberal of course. It is a sin, a sin one must not commit. Killing someone might be okay- but going to Wal-mart unforgivable. I decide instead of allowing this to play around in my head on the ping pong on the ____, that I will find out in this Wal-mart, this Wal-mart bathroom if I am pregnant or not. Pregnant or not. How white trash? How worth writing about? Producing material while going through the motions as not to freak myself out. Freak myself out. Because peeing on a pregnancy test on Wal-mart isn’t scary. I don’t feel alone. Think how many women have peed on the test and waited and waited and waited. Wait I did. Wait I will to be pregnant.

It Was Hell - Camilla Basham

I hear a nightingale greeting dawn
The rain speaking to the roof of my heart
A winter blanket of snow
Tucking in the earth

Under a barren cherry tree
In a neighborhood of cold earth
In a house of wood
In a dress of crinoline

I lay

Cold
Motionless
Alone

Despite what I was led to believe
This is not heaven.

This Is What Happened After - Elizabeth Weld Nolan

Dust fell into braided rows
Light shot through clouds of green
Birds fell into trees singing
Boats on the sea turned over and up
Until their masts pierced the sky
You opened the door
Hung up your hat
Whistling