Trust

The basis of life is trust.
Without it, love has no foundation.
Without a foundation love cannot grow.
Without the rich soil of trust
The rose of love cannot take root.
Without trust
The rose of love cannot bear
The heat of the sun.
It withers.
It tries to go deeper but the inferior soil
Fails to nurture the rose of love
Appropriately

Without trust
The rose of love blooms quickly, immaturely, without fragrance
And the petals fall quickly.
The rose of love has no chance of survival
Without trust.

Starting Over

It seems to me
That my life is
Always
Starting over.
Maybe it’s true that life offers “do overs?”

The wish to start over came early
At birth.
Maybe if I had been born at a different time…
A more convenient time
Not during war time.
Or maybe if I had started over at my conception
I would have the option of being planned or wanted
Not forced upon and conceived accidentally, unexpectedly in fear, pain, shame and disgust.
Maybe if I started over and believed I was wanted, cherished and precious I would respect the little girl that lives in my body and occupies the space and frame commonly known as Connie.
If I started over would I have picked the jobs, careers, schools that I attended?
Would I have married the man who was my husband for twenty unfaithful years of marriage?
Or would I have waited until I found someone to love me rightly and not treat me wrongly?
But all if this is in the past, my past and now I have to option to start over once again.
Starting over by being true to myself and live in reality. Ah, yes, ‘tis true life is a series of “do overs!”

The Cheater
I’m on the treadmill at the club and I think I hear the belt squeaking “no vices…no vices”. I am smiling over this when the young trainer comes over. “Ah…ah…ah, Mr. Fox,” he says, “I caught you again. You’re way over the thirty minute limit.” So I cheated-big deal. Little does he know that I’ve been cheating all my life: in school, in business, on my income tax and on my wife. The funny thing is that, up to now, he’s the only one to catch me.

Married to Howard Myer
When he was a junior in high school, Howard got a hundred on the New York State Regents exam in intermediate algebra. Until I met Howard, I never knew or heard of anyone who got a hundred on any regent and almost everyone in the state has to take them. That certainly was an accomplishment, but that’s about the last thing that Howard ever did.

Faulty Bridge
“Goddamit, can’t you count to thirteen?” Maurice said as he rose from the table, his face purple-red and full of crevices like an overripe strawberry. “They set us. We could have had another six hundred and twenty points. Is your head in some kind of cloud?” Barbara’s head was in a cloud, floating high in the sky, away from all the tedium of the game and the desperate people who measured their worth in bridge points, but most of all, she was away from Maurice.

Diane Marcus

My coveted space on the beach at Bay one, Brighton Beach, Brooklyn was the most valuable slice of real estate in all the city of New York, even if it was only the size of a single bedspread or sheet, but precious nevertheless. My friends and I would lay our blankets side by side, head to head and toe to toe leaving no beach to be seen. We covered the fine white sand, so smooth that it felt more like flour, unless of course it was wet and then gritty on the skin. Then we would empty our beach bags placing shoes, rolled towels, the bag and cover-ups in each corner to keep the blanket firmly anchored. We lived no further than two or three blocks from the beach so that at nine a.m the teenaged kids owned the “prime lots” approximately one half block to the right of the entrance so as not to be in the path of all arrivals, and just above the rise of the ocean, the perfect distance from the shore line so that when the tide came in a little later we would be in no danger of getting washed away. It was still quiet at this early hour of the morning and if we listened we could still hear the waves kissing the shore line and the seagulls squawking and the sounds of umbrellas being raised. When the beach was too hot to walk on we would dig our feet deep into the sand and squish the cool wetness between our toes and on the tops of our feet. The sun was still rising in the sky but by high noon when the boys came, and after we covered ourselves from head to toe with a mixture of baby oil and iodine we spent most of the day in the water running away from the boys who wanted to dunk us trying to accidentally feel us up and the girls terrified that they wouldn’t. We combed our hair, put on fresh lipstick, and adjusted our bathing suits just wanting to be alluring while the boys were like peacocks performing the mating dance, trying to be oh so macho and irresistible. One could almost smell our hormones and see the testosterone as our biology was demanding of us and often not in our best interests.
Little by little and so gradually that it went unnoticed; a cacophony of sounds surrounded us.
Radios playing Johnny Rae’s Cry, Nat King Cole’s Mona Lisa and Patti Page singing Tennessee Waltz that really did make us cry couldn’t muffle the sounds of cheering crowds of Dodger fans vs. Yankee fans trying to outdo each other nor the children screeching with joy and others with tears and nervous parents warning their children not to go out too far in the water, and the ice-cream vendor, walking the beach, carrying his too heavy ice box over his shoulder calling out “fudgesicles, popsicles and cold drinks here.”
Just as they arrived by noon, so did the crowds begin to leave around five, dragging sun burnt kids, sandy clothes and toys, scurrying to catch the BMT [Brooklyn Manhattan Transit] line back home. By seven the beach was ours again and soon we too would be repacking our beach bags, collecting our towels, shaking out our blankets, washing the gritty sand off our feet, putting on our shoes to walk home, shower and plan what to wear to the beach tomorrow and wondering if Tommy, Billy, David and Mike really liked us.

Dave Blodgett - Week #3 Setting

My grandfather’s attic is an irresistible magnet for a nine-year-old boy.

A packed warehouse dimly illuminated by light from two dirty dormer windows that do not deter spiders from making it their exclusive territory. Cobwebs dominate the décor. The air is still and musty. No ventilation. I visit it often.

Filled with old trunks, packing crates, chests of drawers, stacks of science-fiction magazines, bundled newspapers, shelves full of books with browning pages, framed oil paintings, a chiffonier, three ladies’ dress making dummies, a banjo, ukulele, snare drum and most precious of all—my Uncle Winslow’s World War I U. S. Army uniform and equipment: a dress uniform, Sam Browne belt, field boots, canteen in a rotting cotton cover, mess kit with utensils. But it is the peaked, felt hat with a chinstrap that catches my fancy. I can’t resist. I steal it and creep slowly and quietly unseen down the squeaky attic steps and out the front door at 403 Nevada, next door to my home of 22 years.

A group of friends are playing kick the can across the street. I join them. The hat comes down over my ears and attracts the attention of my best buddy’s big brother. Cort is a muscular 15-year-old who takes one look at the oversized, regulation U. S. Army hat and decides to buy it from me. He sets the price: fifteen cents.

The attic at 403 Nevada is suddenly and sadly off limits. Grandpa is not happy about his stupid nine-year-old grandson selling a priceless piece of his son Winslow’s Army uniform for fifteen cents. The hat is promptly retrieved and returned to the attic.