An Unsinkable Legacy

Why must the captain go down with the ship?

I come from a family of survivors.

Though the Titanic sank, I grew up with that story about my

Great

Great

Great

Aunt Ida Strauss.

Mother told the story of how Ida loved her husband so much

She refused to get into the life boat.

A love as deep as the ocean that became her grave.

Is this heroics?

Or stupidity?

Where is the line that separates one from the other?

Loyalty from lies?

Denial from hope?

Why must the show go on?

What if Ida had gotten off?

I might have been spared this legacy.

And what about my grandmother who sailed bravely from Panama thrice widowed

with two little girls

one of them my mother

who told the story of how, once settled safely with family in Cincinnati,

she was put into boarding school

but no she did not feel abandoned by three dead fathers and her

courageous mother.

When does denial become pathological?

When does strength become suppression?

Why do it the company way?

Why tow the party line?

Don’t air your dirty laundry.

Don’t tell our family business -

speaking of which

it might have survived after daddy dropped, had Mother been less sentimental and my brother more realistic.

Recklessness.

But into the drink it went right along with the ship

and so did we.

And what about that unopened video tape, “AIDS, What Is It and How Do You Get It?” I found on the floor of my brother’s closet when boxing up his life?

Another iceberg.

Denial disguised as secrets.

Lies clocked in nobility.

Silence mistaken as loyalty

brings down countries, companies, families and ships.

 

 

Deadly Betrayal

Cats in the cradle, the perfect snare, woven through the fingers of time. I drifted through the morning mist coming closer and closer. She was there waiting for me. I could not resist. She enticed me. I knew she was poison and I would die, but I could not resist. I remembered her body, how she felt, how she shook when we made love. One more time. Please, just give me one more time. She had been there for all eternity weaving her cradle. Weaving a perfect web of death. She knew I was coming. Her eyes burned the mist. I could feel their heat. I could feel their strength pulling me. My lust engulfed me. A damned eternity of lust, burning my loins, racking my body, forcing me towards her. I was sacrificing my eternal soul for lust. I knew it and I could not stop. I was almost there. I felt the heat of her body, sensed the rhythm of her hips. I could hear the sound of her heart throbbing wildly behind her heaving breasts. Her breath came in pants. I sensed her desire for death. It engulfed me like a web. I had betrayed her. She had waited an eternity for revenge. I was so near I could feel her breath through the mist. Her cradle was perfect A snare of eternal revenge. I had to touch her, feel her one last time. She knew I couldn't stop. I reached out, felt her arm. She gasped, shuddered, the excitement of revenge gripping her. Centuries of hate erupted within her. Her heart exploded, her revenge lost. An eternity of planning, building her cradle of deceit, setting her snare, all lost in a heart beat. My lust released me. I was free. I had won..or.. I had lost

Elements of Life

Air Meets Water:

The warm, tropical, humid Hawaiian breeze stirred in the palm trees. Blissfully ignorant, I sat gazing at the pounding surf. Little did I know how quickly this calm would escape me. Swimming with sea turtles, lounging on rafts, snorkeling over coral reefs and kicking with fins through the green waves brought a renewed patience within myself. I was slowing down and just being. Ruah, the breath of life, moved through me. I was grateful for the gift. Would I be able to bring this feeling full circle after flying back to my real life?

Water Meets Earth:

The ocean has always been my solace. I return again and again and she, like an old friend who has waited patiently for my return, welcomes me. Her primordial waters encircle me like the womb of my mother. At the end of the earth, I swim to her, buouyant and weightless. This ocean, with its tumultuous moods, peaceful calm and pounding surf will be my grave. The earth erodes into the sea. And I will swim eternally in her embrace.

Earth Meets Fire:

It was the flatness of her voice and the silence that preceded it that struck fear in my heart. Something was wrong. I know her too well not to detect the nuance of unspoken dread. And then the grave report: "I had a bad biopsy." My heart thumped and the fire of rage consumed me. Her voice, crackled with forced optimism. "We are thinking positively." All I could see was the brown dirt of grief, again. The ashes of a life, again. Only this time, it was Peggy. Life is relentless, I thought. It has only been two years since I stood by as the jagged flames of the oven consumed Mother's body in its fiery cremation. Fifteen since Bob's ashes were placed into the earth next to Jamie's tiny coffin. And twenty-seven since Daddy led the way that August morning in 1981. This time, I fear, I will not have the strength to walk across the red hot coals. No. Not this time. This time I will fight. You will not take her from me. This time you will lose. Not me. The white sands of Hawaii seemed a distant memory and my old friend grief welcomed me home.

Fire Meets Air:

It had been a day of dread. Mother's cremation. As I awoke that morning, I knew I had to go. I called the funeral home. They advised against it. I insisted. I wept. How could I not be there? I had been born from my mother's body. Hers was the first touch I had known. She had cradled me, stroked me, caressed me, protected me until it was I who protected her. Wiping her. Washing her. Even brushing her dentures, something I never thought I could do. On this day, that body would burn to ashes. Dissolved in grief I searched for a sign. A lone pink camellia beckoned me. Mother's favorite flower. I clipped it from the stem, wrapped a wet paper towel and foil around the bottom and left the house. I drove through my tears along the tree-lined street alone in my mother's Buick. And then just ahead there appeared two large birds with wide wingspans. They may have been hawks. They flew just in front of my car, soaring through the air. And I knew I had a sign. There were my parents, reunited, dancing, soaring freely after twenty-five years of separation - together, leading me to the crematorium. I placed the camellia on my mother’s chest and kissed her forehead. They closed the cardboard coffin and slid it into the oven. They waited for me to give the o.k. to push the button. I nodded. It would take four hours for her tiny body to be turned to dust. But I knew, her spirit soared.

Where Did Mervyn's Go?

Where Did Mervyn’s Go? Betty McCallister 6/21/09 It was at the corner of the street, Mervyn’s was. No need to maneuver around the hectic mall parking lot to grab a quick item. Mervyn’s was so handy, but is no more. Perhaps it went the way of my really favorite store, Robinson’s May. And what happened to the local Hallmark Card shop a mile from home where I bought at least 100 cards, gifts and gadgets. They closed their doors after 23 years, along with the Video shop beside them. Both gone with the blink of an eye. The nearby Target and Smart and Final picked up and moved to the next town. So I drive to Long’s Drugs that I visited on a weekly basis and the parking lot is empty. No more Long’s. Bobby McGee’s, a Brea landmark restaurant has a ‘for lease’ sign on it’s face. We celebrated several happy occasions there, where they would place around our necks a paper toilet seat cover for a bib and the good times ensued. Am I living in the twilight zone, I ask myself. Vacant and boarded up buildings are destroying the landscape and scares me so. And what happened to all the hundreds of employees of these establishments I wonder. Perhaps among the gainfully unemployed. Oh, there is more. These days our minds are burdened with downcast news of spiritless events as foreclosures, bankruptcies, war, gay marriages, immigration, budget cuts, short falls, health care, terrorism, Iraq and Iran and Afghanistan, and on and on the list goes like a snowball gathering snow. Our minds are in a boggled state as we try to digest these bigger than life issues. I want to be informed and be a concerned citizen, but it is all a little overwhelming right now. I guess we are all looking for answers as to how and why and to whom to lay blame and point the finger at. Are you as puzzled with it all as I am? Still, as we greet each new day we put one foot in front of the other and nod. We set the table, fold the laundry, butter the toast and go on with the normal functions in an abnormal world, each of us finding our own coping tools in order to stay on top of the game, the game called life that is. Am I on the outside looking in, or am I in the inside looking out? I have always heard that change is a good thing and we must roll with it. Well I sometimes think I am on a slippery sloop just a rolling and a rolling along. I do not want to hear another newscast of more impossible situations. I cannot fix them, I can only fret about them. Is it okay at 70 years young to bury your head in the sand and pretend that everything is just fine? Do I have permission to do that? I have a sign on my patio that I bought at a craft fair which reads, ‘do you suppose the hokey pokey is really what it’s all about’? Do you suppose????? I just want my Mervyn’s back.

the jacket

For some reason certain things stick in your craw. They never leave. I call them poppers. They keep popping up when you least expect them. They usually mean nothing. They are not harbingers of doom or bad memories that depress you. They are just poppers. Pop, there is is again. Why? No one knows. Certain things we never remember. Certain things we never forget. "Poppers" are those unforgettable things. The jacket is one of my poppers. It happened 52 years ago in the fall of 1956. I was seventeen, full testosterone and stupidity and I had five good buddies that were exactly like me. We were shopping for school clothes in Provo, Utah. Provo was not our home town. We were from Orem but in those years Provo was the place to shop. Provo was one of those quaint small towns with one main street going east and west and another going north and south. Both streets were lined with trees and parking was at a diagonal in front of the stores. 1956 was the year of the "Car Coat" and we all wanted one. However, they were quite expensive. They ran about $40.00 and by the time we had our Levis, dress pants and some different styles of shirts we didn't have much money left. We all went onto the jacket store and wandered around looking at the different car coats. I was trying on a gray wool one with a lapel collar. It was mid length and hung just below my butt. I walked over to the mirrors to check out the look and then I just wandered around the store wearing the jacket. One of the group said come on lets get out of here and they started to leave. I looked around and both clerks were busy and not paying any attention to me so I just walked out with the jacket. Oh my God, one of my buddies said. You stole the "effen" jacket. That's really cool. I "was" the "man". They all laughed and giggled and said how great I was to steal the jacket. I was elated and excited. I did it. Wow, I had a "Car Coat". As we were driving home it dawned on me that I couldn't take the jacket home. My mother would know that I stole it. I told that to the others and one of them said he could fool hsi mother and he would pay me for it. I thought boy am I stupid. I took the chance and if I had been caught it would have been my butt at the police station. Now I wasn't even going to get the jacket. He took the jacket and came up with a story about winning it in a drawing. I was the thief. He had the jacket and you know what, he never paid me a dime for the damn thing. I have never stolen another thing. Maybe "poppers" are really my conscience talking to me.

my hero

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life...... is a thought that deeply troubles me. Who else could be a hero in my life? Does my life have any heroes? I am certainly not a hero by any imagination of the word, but I could be a hero of my own life. I could be if I could overcome my main weakness...procrastination. I sure it's not to late. I just have to get started. I'll do that tomorrow. Right now I have to take a nap.

I Owe It All to Kafka

Little did I know I was in for an epiphany right there in the old town square in Prague. I was on a Franz Kafka walking tour with a few other tourists from England. The tour guide was telling us that Kafka only left Prague once in his life to go to Berlin with his wife. He returned to Prague shortly after and never left the city again. He was a tortured soul – working for his father in business. But Kafka was first and foremost a writer. He never published anything he wrote in his lifetime. In fact, he instructed his friend, Max Brod to burn his writing after his death at the age of forty-one, an instruction not followed. As I listened to the story of Kafka’s struggle with the writing life, I took in the historically ornate buildings around me. Prague, with its own tortured history, is emblematic of the strange tension that resides in so many artists’ souls – that is the tension between beauty and despair. Prague is a town brimming with artistic genius. Music pours out of the churches – organ concerts and Mozart’s Requiem – creations from another world - clash with the popular culture of the twenty-first century. Prague, the town of the Velvet Revolution and Vaclav Havel, spared bombing in World War II by Hitler because of its beauty – even that a shadowed piece of history, is a city with an identity crisis. It seemed fitting to me that Kafka would have come from this place. As I walked along the cobble stoned streets and crooked buildings, I was moved by the idea that one could spend an entire lifetime in such a small area. Where stimulation fuels creativity, imagination must take over when travel and adventure are lacking. The mind is indeed a vast resource – how else could Kafka have written Metamorphosis ? And then my epiphany. One of my fellow tourists remarked as we walked along, “why would anyone keep writing if they aren’t ever published?” And right there beneath the windows of unseen ghosts, I said to this stranger, “Why then, you must not know what it is to be an artist.” Alone in Prague, I pondered my response. I sat at a café and pondered what I’d said. Do I know what it is to be an artist? I pondered as I sipped Czech beer and ate goulash. I pondered as I crossed the Charles Bridge between the line of carved statues toward the immense castle looming on the other side. This city, hauntingly beautiful, became a living, breathing symbol for my own stunted artistry. “What am I waiting for ” I asked myself. Kafka wrote because he had to. That’s what writers do. An artist must produce his art regardless of pubic acclaim. It must move from the heart to the page in order to be. And I pledged then and there to produce my own art in whatever form it would take. I promised myself that I would fearlessly create because otherwise, as Martha Graham says to Agnes DeMille "if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it." And I recalled my favorite passage in Virginia Woolf’s To The Light House;

Quickly, as if she were recalled by something over there, she turned to her canvas. There it was, her picture. Yes, with all its greens and blues, its lines running up and across, its attempt at something. It would be hung in the attics, she thought; it would be destroyed. But what did it matter? she asked herself, taking up her brush again. She looked at the steps; they were empty; she looked at her canvas; it was blurred. With a sudden intensity, as if she saw it clear for a second, she drew a line there, in the centre. It was done; it was finished. Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision.

It is this that I wish to be able to say on my deathbed.

Amy Luskey-Barth

Portrait of my Mother

My Mother was a highly intelligent woman; she skipped two grades in elementary school and graduated from high school when she was just 16 years old. She had majored in science and took two years of Latin, she dreamed of going into medicine but unfortunately it was 1936, the height of the “Great Depression” there was no question, she was not going to college. Her father deserted the family when she was still quite young; her mother was on the public dole, supplementing the family income with a part-time job cleaning a movie theatre. There was no work for a 16 year old girl, with or without a high school diploma so Mom sat all day and strung wooden beads, busy work invented by the WPA. Finally when she was 18 she found work as a waitress at a bus station lunch counter. When she was 21, she married her best friend’s older brother, my Dad. My Mother was beautiful, caustically funny, athletic, hard working, organized to a fault and baked the best pies in the world. She was absurdly thrifty and could stretch a dollar until the Eagle screamed. When she died, I cleaned out drawers and cupboards full of recycled twist ties; reused so many times they were but bare wires. Also empty margarine tubs and cool whip containers, dozens and dozens of them. There was little of a personal nature; she hated nick knacks, called them “dust catchers”, never wore jewelry and didn’t save mementos. Her penmanship was beautiful but she wrote only grocery and “to do” lists and threw those away as soon as each item was neatly crossed off. She left nothing behind that could give even a clue to what was in her heart. My mother was depressed a great deal of the time, prone to rages that caused her to scream at us, eyes bulging, face purple. For many years, while we were growing up she kept a huge bottle of vodka under the kitchen sink. When we were grown and out of the house, she didn’t seem to need it any more. She was also honest, sometimes too much so. When I was a young woman she told me that there was something missing in her, that she was unable to love children as other mother’s loved. She did not mean to be unkind; but all I could hear was “I didn’t love you”. No that is not exactly what she said, but that is what I heard. I would have rather heard a lie. I never thought I’d be like my Mother; I worked studiously towards being another person. I would be like Aunt Shirley or I would be like Annette on the Mickey Mouse Club, I would be a new invention, a person created in a vacuum, like no one else. In many ways, I succeeded, I am not like her. I do not have her organizational skills, I was never athletic, I can not do the New Times Sunday crossword puzzle in ink. My pie crust looks like a child’s paper Mache art project not perfectly formed like my mother’s. My house tends toward the chaotic, not a “place for everything and everything in its place” like my mother’s. My handwriting looks like chicken scratch; it is not perfectly formed like my mother’s. I am like my mother in many ways despite my childhood resolve. I am prone to depression, I force myself to “hug” and to touch, and it doesn’t come easily. I have a sharp and sometimes hurtful tongue. I became so much of her that I did not like and in my struggle I forgot to embrace that which I most admired.

"Ouch"

I think everybody in the world has been stung. I can't prove it, but I'd bet my last $2 on it. Well, I suppose I would have to eliminate babies. However, once your up and walking, your going to get stung by one of those pesky buggers. If you are lucky, you won't be bitten by a Yellow Jacket. I wasn't. I mean I wasn't lucky. I was stung by the biggest Yellow Jacket in the western USA. At least I was sure it was the biggest. It looked like the biggest one to me. Now one of the important things about being stung is...""where did it get you"? Your hand? Your foot? I knew a guy who got stung on his " good time charley" when he was relieving himself on a hunting trip. That made for a lot of good jokes on that trip and a lot of trips after that. I had always been lucky with my bee stings. They were on the hand ,the foot, the legs or the arms. The places that hurt but didn't cause any major discomfort. But, the last one was a real bitch. I have hunted, fished and camped all of my life so you would think that I would have learned a few things. Well I have learned some things, but I did not learn about Wasps and Coke. While out camping last summer. I was enjoying a book, a fire and a coke in the late afternoon. My wife asked me to do something so I set the book and the coke down and did what she asked. When I returned to my place of solitude I took a nice big mouth full of the coke and the Yellow Jacket that was stealing it. I was lucky in that I did not swallow, but I did manage to make the Wasp mad and of course, before I could spit him and coke out, he let me have it. The only good thing thing about the whole incident was that it didn't get me in the throat. It got me on the inside of my cheek. For two days it hurt like hell and I looked and felt like I had an impacted tooth. Now I know that you should never leave an open soda can where a Wasp can lay claim to it.