Weekday morning breakfasts for you consisted only of freshly squeezed orange juice and coffee. Somehow you made it through the day until dinner. The word around the office was that you worked throu…

Source: Puffed Rice

Weekday morning breakfasts for you consisted only of freshly squeezed orange juice and coffee. Somehow you made it through the day until dinner. The word around the office was that you worked through lunch. It was a concern, dental assistants hovered around me on my visits and asked if I could “talk your father into eating some lunch.” I knew it was a fruitless effort; “Feh” was all you said.

Weekend mornings, those were delicious – and strange. I know now why I dip cold chicken into Mayonnaise or crumble up my chips so small to get the most of of my dip experience. You liked what you liked, end of story.

This one particular savory morning is at the top of my list of favorites. I woke up to a smell as if I had a sleepover in a movie theater. My skin and hair smelled of buttery popcorn and my salivary glands basically pulled my body out of bed and dragged me to the kitchen.

“What are you making?”

“You’ll see” (the response that took up 90% of my childhood inquiries)

“Jess, come on”

So I sat at the table and looked out at my favorite place in the whole wide world, my backyard; and when I looked down I saw a bowl of golden, a bit browned, tiny oblong balls. Honestly they looked like teeny, tiny footballs, as if made for the tiniest miniature person ever alive. It smelled like absolute, pure magic. I still looked at my dad to see if he was serious though he did not look at me. He sat down and began eating.

I knew the drill – no kvetching, no whining, just eat it.

Toasted, buttery, perfection melted in my mouth! Like breakfast pop-rocks I was born again into breakfast beauty…

At some point I looked up and just saw him nodding and smirking at me as if it was his plan all along to shock my taste buds into complete allegiance.

I loved your puffed rice. And this was only one small tiny adventure in your pocket of a giant.

Exercise

The devil of the

open day

to sweat or not to sweat

that was never the question,

though it was today –

 

Each foot

slamming the sidewalk

each leg

a lead weight

heavier than the next

 

For them –

my three

earnest little beasts –

I can not dissolve underground

 

You had to go

but I am here

to take care of them

and love them

 

and laugh at the ridiculous

beautiful

things

they say.

 

 

I will let poetry

be the portal

literary tunnel

of our story

 

A small hand

makes

an “O”

my thumb almost touching

it partners

around your middle finger

 

That’s how we walked

together

after the day

we became

two.

 

 

 

Like the palm of a giant

Where I could always find you

nestled

New Yorker

Gin

on ice

 

That’s where I ran –

The bee sting on my toe

The bully, so mean

The nothing,

The quiet

My stringy hair between your hands and a kiss

goodnight –

 

10 yr old legs crisscrossed at the wrist

watching Gilda Radner, Sid Ceaser

I could not leave until I understood the best of the

best –

 

It can’t possibly be empty

though it is

Ottoman upside down

in the palm of the giant.

 

I love the spice
The haze
The medium body
Not quite full

It meant I had the whole
Cigar
An hour
Maybe more

Stories
And silence
The paper ring

On my finger

I watched the ash
and then

it fell

Until the light
Of another flame

I’ll see you
At
Dusk

Why is it that

at 3 a.m.

all the things

which I can do

Absolutely

nothing about

sneak into my pillow case

wrap around my calves

like twisted sheets –

a linen noose

 

I wish I could bring my sleeping bag

into your room

and close my eyes

on the floor

next to the foot

of your bed

because that is where I always

slept the best.

 

I am suspended
A marionette

One arm up
One arm down
ticking
Back and forth
Tick
And tock

Head is cocked

I’m just thinking what
I will do next

Without you both.

I’m not sure what to do with you
You fickle
Little foe

I want to run back there
To the black and white
Sepia
Tones

Like Mary Poppins
In her paints

Put my body back
Into that skirt
Careless
And yet
Knowingly
“all in”

I know what
And who
Was on my left
On my right

The two of us said we’d drive
And peak over the world
So we did-

We did what we said
We
Would
Do

 

It was the perfect Madison, fall day. My two and a half year old daughter was the queen of Vilas Zoo, prancing from giraffe to ostrich, flamingo to rhino. My 1 year old sat humming in a bag pack chewing on a toy; he was the king of my back.

We came to an open area which offered many options, snacks, picnics, polar bears, black bears and birds. My daughter seriously scanned her options and then chose, instead, to go straight for a puddle created by the previous day’s rain.  I watched her place the ball of her right foot in the water. She gave me one right eye, smiled that kind of a smile we mother’s know as, “I just found a piece of really old candy on the floor and I am telling no one!!”  I smiled back but did not a thing.

She jumped!

Her light blue shoes turned navy;

She jumped!

Her pink pants became soggy, drenched a deep, dark red.

She jumped!

Her laughter brought on a feeling of tingly euphoria;  I was sweetly tipsy.

Next to my daughter was a friend of hers who slurped that puddle up with envious eyes; he headed straight for it. Before he was able to dive in feet first his mommy panicked, “No! We don’t have a change of clothes.” He was a good boy; he stopped, dropped his head, and walked back to her dry as a desert. She glared at me and reprimanded, “I can’t believe you are letting her get all wet!”

As if in quicksand, my mind left that autumn day and found itself on a cold, winter day in December; Dec. 31st 1981. That day became a line on my palm. My older, half sister just picked me up from a sleep over. We were heading back home. We were very close to our neighborhood when she pulled over. She was delegated the unfortunate job of telling me my mother had died the night before. Probably while I was eating an Oreo and playing Mrs. Packman.

When we walked through the front door I saw that my kitchen was converted into an anthill of frantic, nervous Jews. There were bagels, cream cheese, pastrami platters, corned beef; so many strangers and familiar faces asking me if I was hungry.  And there were tears. Tears that were black and sticky, painting my face with charcoal grey streaks. So many red nails and polish all through my hair, wrapped all over my body.

DASH!

I ran upstairs to find my father sitting in his favorite over-sized chair, paralyzed. The chair about to swallow him whole.  “Dad, can we get another one?”

“No Jessie.”

Impossible!

I sprinted down the steps; I was a race car, the finish line the end of my driveway.

Why there?

Past the driveway there was nothing. Behind me there was nothing and everything.

I found myself looking down at a puddle which used to be a mound of old snow, before the cars, the ants…the chaos…. In this puddle I saw the reflection of a scared seven year old girl.

I jumped!

In went the patent leather shoes;

I jumped!

Then the white tights turned a spotted, dirty grey;

I jumped!

The hem and skirt of my velvet dress became  heavy with slush. A few droplets made it into my mouth and I tasted, what I know now is, the succulence of childhood. For a short , sweet moment, before my disappearance was discovered, I forgot she would not be home when I returned from school; I forgot… I was motherless.

My eyes focused again on my daughter and her buddy who were now heading towards the polar bear. As we followed, I turned and looked at the boy’s mommy who lingered behind me. She was still looking at me as if I stripped down into my skivvies right there in the middle of the zoo.. She was baffled. “You don’t care that she is sopping wet?”

“No.”

“I don’t.”

 

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