We met Jesus at his gate. My little daughter was so excited she ran up to him & clung to his legs. He put her little feet on top of his big feet & continued to walk forward wheeling his luggage, while she squealed like a parrot.
His suitcase was brand-new & shiny, and it had a piece of purple duct tape on it — JHC, his initials. His carryon bag looked like it had been trampled upon by a multitude. Jesus looked… tired & dusty.
Not what I expected. Always, always, always use waterproof mascara. One never knows when one might find it necessary to cry.
He couldn’t believe what people were doing with his name. The worst kind of identity theft, he called it. Jesus knew swear words that hadn’t even been written yet.
He had a work ethic nobody could fathom. But superhuman, no. He functioned mainly on coffee and chocolate and weed, just like the rest of us.
The bride’s laugh vexed the lands, overlooking the great, bruise-colored canyon, when she first said to the groom, No, I don’t think so.
She defied his desires, for nearly a century. He tried so hard… it nearly brought death. His, or hers; it didn’t really matter.
We’ve learned how some of them, my darlings, are nothing more than creeps. And rest assured, our game does have an end: an end which tips the scale. The journey out of the wilderness, away from the pit, will find our esters quite changed. Our journey was (or will be) long, and very quiet.
Now, our shimmering skin dims to the shadow thief; time is stealthy, taking soundless, fevered positions. The anticipation is delicious, under our knees, truth thrust like a knife (between waxen observers). Soon, light-dressed love will be in your hair; and wrestlers, across the colors, will shift through the room. Desire, realized, is hot silk, slipping quiet and soft. Dear one, there is no other course found. You know more laughing is the way — and less is usually, but not always, more.
Oh! It happened with the first naked, helpless chicken in the oven I recognized… Mommy, get it out, let it out, I cried… chickens have their own heaven, my mother lied.
At six, I dressed as Saint Teresa of Avila for Halloween… that year, I felt sinful accepting candy. More than anything, I yearned to bless their dear hands moving with generosity toward my outstretched pillowcase.
Later, I tried bright blue skin, leading my perfumed cows to drink. I wore robe of scarlet and gold, a red galero atop my head. I wore fragrant saffron in my hair, eating nothing except fruit from the ground, sweeping the earth bare before my steps… with a broom I made myself.
I danced in green meadows, wrapped ribbons around a Maypole, reached high for a golden ring. I sank into plushy new grass. Once more, the earth herself said to me, you will be all right, you will always be all right, as I lay upon her — a small, breakable doll. I lay on my mother like that (like that) (like that) (like that) for hours, eyes shut, and felt her words eternal lift off the roof of my skull and cleanse me of my fear and shame like fast-running, silvery water.
The old lady didn’t know she sat under poet’s jasmine. She didn’t know the plant was native to Iran and of course, she didn’t know another name for it was common jasmine. The coffee was nice & hot and her sprinkle cookie was nice & sweet. Did you know every time a love song made you cry, an angel got its wings?
So she sat at her table, outdoors in the cool shade, writing & editing & surprised every so often by a whiff of some heavenly perfume. She kept writing & smelling heaven, writing & smelling heaven. Someone once said that every love song was really about god.
For a while, she thought this gift was courtesy of a young woman at the table in front of her, but she left and the puffs of light sweet perfume kept right on puffing. She nibbled what was left of her glorious cookie. Your soul is a mirror, my soul is a mirror, she thought.
She saw, reflected in a pane of glass, the image of vines. She lifted her head and saw dozens of jasmine blossoms swaying high above, each tiny, white star the universe’s own perfumery. Right there in a coffee shop, on Sixth Avenue.
Every moment of her life had been marked by her soul, waiting and restless, trying to elevate itself. Yearning. In the end, she had done what she had HAD to do… she recognized herself only from a great distance. Was she Mary Poppins? Pollyanna? A doe-eyed Disney princess? She remembered driving across Western flatlands, as fast as she could, her head out the window, her face into the sere wind.
She, an Air Force pilot’s daughter, felt bad for the poor stewardesses, who knew what was coming in a way mere passengers could not know… stoically dumping everyone’s shoes in the bathroom. Collecting all sharp things, taking people’s eye-glasses away from them. She remembered walking along the edges of the Atlantic, feeling the cool sand under her toes. Mother Universe keeps her eyes on us all.
Someone reached out to grasp her hand, solid & firm. She grasped back. She looked at the sun through the little window, a flashing brilliant light, and lightly closed her eyes. It would be quick, merciful, and good. And right now? Right now she was still alive. She was still a witness. There was no other way to get through life. Mercy was revealed, and blinded her. Everyone was waiting.
She was grateful when, at 6:40 p.m., a sort of peace — a gauzy cloak of comfort— floated down from the the ceiling, covering her head and shoulders. Her cat purred at her side and the golden hour had finally arrived. Meanwhile, the neighborhood teenagers, who jammed hard, pulsed and pounded three houses down. The faraway beat grew irritating… and then for a moment she couldn’t tell the difference between the drummer and her heartbeat.
She remembered the scandal about broadcasting Elvis‘s pelvis on national television. “Elvis the pelvis,” she’d laugh.
She wasn’t a huge Elvis fan. She liked Johnny Mathis, Ella Fitzgerald, Barbra Streisand, Maria Callas, Broadway show tunes, opera, folk, not so much rock ‘n’ roll.
My mother, she was soft. She was a soft girl, melting on the beach, into the waves, like the sea foam in her poem. Rolling on the beach with a magical someone, merging with the waves, and like seafoam, being swept away, swept away.
My mother wanted to be swept away from her feelings, from her deep, deep insecurity and shame, so much shame, my mother carried so much shame
First for leaving her mother behind at 14, and second for coming back divorced at 21, with a toddler and an ex-husband who was capable of paying exactly zero child support. The shame.
From the infinite promise to the dust of shame, my poor mother.
So sad all the time, she just wanted to blot it out.
Once in a while she’d be happy, once in a while.
That was the rare exception, for my mother to smile genuinely, and to laugh genuinely, and her eyes would clear, and they would look at mine and I could see her in there, not just a wall of shame and fear and alcohol.
A gypsy told me once that my mother was my soulmate, and that my heart broke the day I was born, because she was mine, but I wasn’t hers. That’s what the gypsy said, of course, then she wanted $10,000 to tell me more, which I did not pay, by the way
My mother, where to start?
Like one of the white flowers that smells like heaven, but you cannot touch because you will bruise it, my mother.
Even 40 years after losing her, 40 years later, the rusty sharp knife of it can still get you, right at the belly button. Right there. A kick in the solar plexus, 40 years later, it can still happen. It surprises you.
That’s how broken I was by losing her, broken by the whole thing, the whole sad episode, never on the track of my life again, always having to stay between the lines, for dear life.
Like that time I successfully hydroplaned in my car on the interstate, my child asleep in her carseat in the back, hydroplaned and lived to tell about it at the next rest stop, where I learned that a driver ahead of me hadn’t managed to hydroplane successfully, and their car skied up and over the concrete barrier into the oncoming traffic, and they were instantly killed.
I pulled into the next rest stop, which fortunately was not far, and I could not stop shaking, and my daughter was still peacefully asleep in her car seat. I shook and I shook, and eventually I recovered and drove another 150 miles to get back to my hometown, my dear little hometown.
Boy, did she know how to read between the lines! And upside down, and in a mirror, and in the dark. She knew how to read in Braille, in cuneiform, in emojis. She could read between the lines, and hear the unspoken secrets of many people. Not all, thanks be to god.
Goddess. There is only one woman, she heard in her head. There is only ONE WOMAN. One universal truth. Many fractured mirror truths. Everyone was cracked, somewhere.
Leslie Gaines is a criminal, a con man and an artistic failure. He stole business cash & assets from me personally, to the tune of six figures. Yes: six figures.
He has left a trail of many other defrauded partners behind him. I pity anyone who trusts him with their priceless time, credit rating, camera equipment, or vehicles.
In addition to those crimes, he invaded my home and physically assaulted me. He is currently hiding out in Montana, plotting his next big con job. Warning: do not ever, under any circumstances, believe one word this man utters.
He is a pathological liar. He sheds crocodile tears. He is a bad actor. He is a bad “filmmaker. He is a hypocrite, a racist, and a descendant of General Gaines, one of the foremost murderers of native Americans in this country’s history.
He, himself, is quite literally cursed by the Seminole and the Miccosuccee tribes — they have judgments against him for millions: he will never be able to own property in his own name as long as he lives.
I also believe he is suffering from early dementia. Or, just as likely, he has just rotted his brain with too much drinking & drugging.
He abuses women, uses & emotionally abuses everyone he meets, and continues to steal & abuse me emotionally by using my deceased brother’s name as a credit on his illegally obtained footage!
I pray that he doesn’t harm anyone else. Forewarned is forearmed.
All things are new, all things are fascinating. Laughter is easy, so are tears. An open heart, an open mind. A willingness to explore, to risk, to learn. Mostly joy. Waking up with excitement sometimes just like Christmas morning. And love. The capacity to love with the full heart, love down to the bones. Try to live as a child as much as you can. Be childlike, not childish. And listen, and see, and taste & touch & smell. Anything is possible.
Kimberly Townsend Palmer 