She sat very still....

on the white sofa....
looking at the cacophony of blues reflected so beautifully in the water and in the sky.....
looking at the way that the violet blue of her summer skirt
contrasted with the flat white leather of the sofa.....
thinking about the strange and monumentally profound events which had taken place
over the last month or so......
She had "gone home"......
I mean.....REALLY GONE HOME.....
She had Severed some of the truly destructive ties from the past......
and Ironically, she had cemented them at the same time.....
She had researched the ALIENS who had presumably landed in her back yard,,,
and astonishingly........
 she had become CONVINCED that they were REALLY THERE after all!!!
She had told long standing ENEMIES where to SHOVE IT......
and at the same time.....
 she had endeared herself and apologized to the ones whom she'd never let in....
For she realized NOW that it was all just a game....
a game of "HE SAID / SHE SAID".....
a game of THRONES....
Ultimately, WINNING was just another layer of SOUL BUILDNG.....
Well....

They decided to meet at that same, old diner....

the one where they'd met so many times before....
Two years had gone by...
without a word spoken between them......
One had to actually WADE through the
veritable GALLONS of water under the bridge...

She sensed immediately that things had changed...
that her old friend no longer held that indescribable, magical quality which had once been so
conspicuous and delightful to behold.....
Nope...
in its place was DULLNESS....age perhaps....
The shine had indeed fallen off of the apple...so to speak.....
To the extent that one could literally have seen it (the shine) sliding down beneath the red and green
exterior....
There was a PUDDLE of LIQUID SHINE lying there on the diner floor....
"Ahhhh",,,,,,she thought with no small measure of disappointment.......
"So it goes".....

Can we ever REALLY go back home ?

Oh, sure....
We can happily delude ourselves into thinking....
that 'all will be just fine' when we MAGNANIMOUSLY re-enter the picture....
And although, on a certain level, this is absolutely so......
it would seem that there exists a deeper, more profound level of  the veritable measure of "home",...
For 'home' is NOT the chairs and lamps...
'Home' is NOT the hammock or birdbath in the backyard....
Without sounding posthumous or trite....
I humbly suggest that our 'TRUE HOME' is that VERY specific place....
where our LOVE and our LIGHT have lived....
where our sentiment has evolved....
Home is a familiar smell.....
a yellow rose....
a pitch....a sound....
Home is who we REALLY ARE.....when the shades are drawn....
when the makeup from the day is removed...
when the crowds have gone.....
Home is that child whom we adore so....
that aged parent.....
that nostalgic song which grabs us with its utter familiaity....
Home....
Can we ever really go back ?
or.....
Are we ALREADY THERE ?

A package arrived late one afternoon....

It was postmarked from Japan....
"Hmmm"....
What could she possibly be getting from Japan ?
She hurried upstairs to open it....
As she pried the sealed box open,
an enormous amount of green tissue paper came spilling out....
She waded through what seemed like POUNDS of the green paper...
and on the very bottom of the HUGE box.....
there was a tiny, gift wrapped package...
"Hmmm".....
What could this be ???
She hurried to open the 'gift'....
Inside it was a KEY....
a GOLD KEY....
no note.....
no tag attached to it....
just a key.....
She thought for sure that she had missed the card among all the tissue paper....
So she tore it all apart....
NOTHING......
Weird......very weird....
Something about this strange, dramatic , little delivery made her shiver......
The key had nothing inscribed on it...
No name, serial number, ....nothing....
So....
What was she supposed to do with it ??
I mean, who in Japan would be sending her an anonymous key ?
She placed the package with the key in it on her vanity table....
As she did so, her hand trembled.....
and she rushed out the door to run to the market.....
Shed forgotten to stop there earlier...
As she opened the car door.....
on the drivers seat, sat another package !!!
wrapped in the same green tissue paper.....
But there was a red rose on the seat as well....
a single, daunting , red rose.....
WHAT WAS GOING ON ??
HOW on Earth had someone gotten into her car ?
Should she call the police ?
Was she forgetting some special occasion or holiday ?
Should she open this next package ?
She looked around ....
Maybe whomever had left this was here somewhere......
Her trembling and shivering became profuse..
Sweat trickled down the back of her neck...
She was frightened,,,,,REALLY frightened...
There was a strange noise in the rose bushes behind her......
She turned..........(to be continued)

Is That 'Gold Dust' I See Sparkling on My Face ?

as I look into the mirror this morning ?
Was it there YESTERDAY ?
Or...
Did an angel with Golden Wings sprinkle it over me as I slept ?
Is it 18 karat gold ?
Do you suppose ?
or....
 a mere SYMBOL of hope and light and fortuitous days ahead ?
Shall I gather it in order to HARVEST it?
Does one HARVEST gold ??
Would exfoliation be a mistake ?
And what if I held a TIN CUP just beneath my chin.......
and collected all of the twinkling dust ?
After all....
the tin cup is of no use to me anymore.....
as I no longer can afford to pay for my CRATE just outside of BARNEY's.....
the one which I was perched upon for so long....
So....
What if I were to bring the tin cup filled with "presumed 18 karat gold"
to my local BULLION SHOP ?
to the JEW with the yarmulke ?
(the one who TRADES everything for everything)...
and he were to MELT the golden ice down for me ?
And then....
What if I forged onward to the nearest CHASE BANK ?.....
and cashed in the gold for GREEN ?
Is it GOLD on my face....
or just GLITTER from the little one's art project ?

Salad Choppers and Municipal Courts....

What comes first ?
The HIGHLY EFFICIENT, UBER-FUNCTIONING "food processor ??
or......
The un-ignorable"""ISSUE""" with the MUNICIPAL COURT ?
or.....
The fun and GAINFUL INFOMERCIALS ???
How can we prioritize the efficacy factor embedded herein ?
TELL ME !!!
All you SUPER organized, 'BEYOND THE PALE' Yokels.....(Yonkels!)
 lol
TELL ME !!!
I'm listening......
But alas....
No sound is emanating from you whatsoever....
Only shaking heads and wagging fingers....
Echoing....Echoing.....
"I told ya so"....
"You should've listened"....
Yeah...Yeah.
Too little too late, MI COMPADRES....
The fat lady has been singing for a DECADE !!
So...
Wipe the SMUG right off of those pusses....
You're not really ALL THAT.....

On Afterthoughts....

It is all well and good...
to "be present"....to be "engaged"...
In fact, I'd venture to Say even that its "mandatory"...
Having said that....
I'm wondering whether we actually ALLOW ourselves the LUXURY....
(Well...... the NECESSITY)
of really considering the place in which we currently stand....
In other words....
we have TRUCKLOADS and VOLUMES of "stuff" thrown at us on any given day...
on MOST days really...
And we pretty much "comprehend" the hurling matter as it flies by...
or rather...
we THINK we're comprehending it......
But are we TRULY weighing the pros and cons??
the inevitable CONSEQUENCES of too quickly accepting those
hurling clumps of "matter" as GOSPEL ?
Am I making sense ?
Are you COMPREHENDING what I'm saying ?
SO......
We accept 90% of the things that are told to us as TRUTH....
Trust me on this....We DO...
Because SCEPTICISM.....EMPIRICISM....QUESTIONABILITY....
they are virtually UNACCEPTABLE....
And we get DOOPED, my friends.....BIG TIME......
Yup...we DO......
We get "BAMBOOZLED" into situations and into CONTRACTS even !
which we have NO INTENTION of seeing through to completion !!!
HOW CAN WE ?
We didn't even know we were AGREEING to them in the first place!!!
And so....we are faced , in retrospect....
(in IMMEDIATE retrospect!)
with the UGLY TASK of having to call them back....
of having to face them with our ULTIMATE CONCLUSION to
simply MOVE on....
knowing FULL WELL........
that we appear to be INDECISIVE, HORSES ASSES......
OK ?