"Since flesh can't stay, we keep the breath aloft. Since flesh can't stay, we pass the words along." --Erica Jong

Sunday, September 30, 2007

I'm a Mother!




May 25, 1965

We rented out the little house in back-- they have no furniture, so we have to buy it all. We got a mattress set for $26 and a refrigerator for $45-- both in good condition. The renters gave us a $100 dollar bill!

...The baby kicks and punches a lot, and has for quite a while. I can even see it on the outside. Usually when I'm lying down and trying to rest is when it decides to exercise. It turns around and rolls from one side to the other a lot. I've been going into the backyard to suntan some afternoons. I'll feel funny now with renters in the back. I am getting so fat. Sometimes I get so depressed, about nothing. I feel like sitting in the corner and howling, and I can't think of any reason WHY. I get lonesome sometimes.

A man just left who wants to sell us a water softener. He doesn't know we don't have any money! My washer and dryer both work good, only the water has to run out into the backyard. But it dries up fast. We still have to get so many things-- a crib mattress and pads and baby clothes, etc. Week after next I start working my 10 split trick. Only two more months to go. (I worked for Ma Bell as a telephone operator, the same job my mother worked at for twenty-five years in Inyokern).


August 20, 1965

They are getting even with me for those nice four days off. I'm working ten days in a row. Five to go. But there is one piece of good news. We're going to get our insurance after all. Some nice lady from Juvenile Hall gave us a lot of baby clothes, an infantseat, and a car bed.


(As it turned out, I didn't have to work those ten days in a row after all. Of the five days left, I only worked four. And it was a good thing the insurance kicked in when it did. The baby was born on the last day, three weeks early. Surprise, surprise. A BOY-- six pounds two ounces, 18 inches long. Marvin said he looked like Woody Woodpecker. I thought he was just beautiful! What d'you think?)

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Windmills of Your Mind


Round, like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning
On an ever spinning reel
Like a snowball down a mountain
Like a carnival balloon
Like a carousal that's turning
Running rings around the moon

Like a clock whose hands are sweeping
Past the minutes on it's face
And the world is like an apple
Whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

Like a tunnel that you follow
To a tunnel of it's own
Down a hollow to a cavern
Where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving
In a half forgotten dream
Or the ripples from a pebble
Someone tosses in a stream

Like a clock whose hands are sweeping
Past the minutes on it's face
And the world is like an apple
Whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

Keys that jingle in your pocket
Words that jangle in your head
Why did summer go so quickly
Was it something that I said
Lovers walk along the shore
Leave their footprints in the sand
Was the sound of distant drumming
Just the fingers of your hand

Pictures hanging in a hallway
And a fragment of a song
Half remembered names and faces
But to whom do they belong
WHen you knew that it was over
Were you suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning
To the color of his hair

Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning
On an ever spinning reel
As the images unwind
In the circles of your mind


(From the soundtrack to the movie The Thomas Crown Affair, words and music by Alan Bergman and Michel Legrand)

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About Me

My photo
1. In dreams I am often young and thin with long blond hair. 2. In real life I am no longer young, or thin, or blonde. 3. My back hurts. 4. I hate to sleep alone. (Fortunately I don't have to!) 5. My great grandfather had 2 wives at once. 6. I wish I had more self-discipline. (I was once fired from a teaching position in a private school because they said I was "too unstructured and undisciplined." --Who, me??? Naaaahhh....) 7. I do not blame my parents for this. Once, at a parent-teacher conference, the teacher told me my little boy was "spacey." We ALL are, I told her. The whole fan damily is spacey. She thought I was kidding. I wasn't. 8. I used to travel with a theater reperatory company. My parents weren't happy about this. 9. My mother was afraid that I would run off and paint flowers on my cheeks and live in a commune, and grow vegetables. I once smoked pot. ONE TIME. 10. I don't drink or smoke. (Or swear, much. Well, I drink milk, and water, and orange juice, and stuff. Cocoa. I love Pepsi.) 11. Most of my friends are invisible. 12. I am a poet and a writer. All of my writing on these pages is copyrighted. Borrowing (without acknowledgment) is a sin.