It's About Time

Closets hold many things. The exercise room closet held objects and memories which K and I no longer needed: household items, books, Christmas and Easter items, knick-knacks, old family photos and wedding china.

For two days, we took turns looking over our past. We gave each other the time, privacy and dignity needed for such a task. We were burying our dead.

We kept those things which brought back good memories. If something was salvageable, we donated it to Goodwill or gave it to friends. The wedding china will be sold in the coming weeks. The remainder went to the trash.

In the coming months, the Tempe house glassware, flatware, cutlery, cooking pots and mixing bowls will be donated to Goodwill. Anything else of the old ways and old life will be removed from the house or sealed and forgotten. We no longer have time to waste on the past.

For that same reason, I donated my wheelchair and cane to Goodwill last Friday. I may need one or the other in the coming years, but I'm not planning my life on either possibility. I have better things to do.

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Spring Time in My Backyard

For the first time since I moved into my house, the back yard is in bloom. I threw the ten pounds of wild flower seeds around the gravel atoll surrounding my backyard in late October. The wet winter did the rest.

In the next two months, my favorites will blossom: Mexican Hat, Baby's Breath, Bishop's Flower, Blanketflower, California Poppy, Calliopsis and Sweet Alyssum.

Since 1997, I grew my spring flowers in the front yard of the Tempe house. Within three years, they consumed the yard in joyous color. I enjoyed sitting in the Fisher-Price kindergarten chair and listening to the radio while tending to my flowers.

On those mornings and afternoons when I weeded and collected seeds, I got a chance to talk at length with neighbors as they strolled down the street. At the end of the season, anyone who was interested received their fair share of seeds.

I received seeds from several people I would have never met except for their interest in flowers. One older woman of mid-70's age gave me some poppy seeds which, as an young girl, she grew in her back yard next to the railroad tracks near downtown Tempe. They are the most unusual poppies I've seen. Damn odd, but I like them.

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Legacy

Some things stay with you for life. That statue of Leif Erikson is how I remember my hometown of Newport News, VA.

He guarded the main entrance to Mariners' Museum when I was a little scamp. At over nine feet tall, he looked out to the horizon, searching for something. What I don't know, but he was steadfast in his decision and direction.

I have photographs taken with him as a small boy, later as a teenager with my junior year girlfriend and much later as a returning son visiting my parents. On one of those trips back home in the early Eighties, I was shaken when I couldn't find him. The museum had moved him during one of their remodelings. I finally found him in a small exploration park across from the old front entrance to the museum.

Within the last few years, they moved him inside the museum. Even in his new location, his vision hasn't changed. He still searches the horizon.

He was the son of Erik the Red, hence his surname - Erikson. He was a Viking and a Seafarer. My people were seafarers before we settled down in the shipyard town of Newport News. I'm glad they settled there. I'm very proud of my roots and my people.

I've always felt a kinship to Lief Erickson. As a young boy, I wanted to be named Erik or Erikson. It was a powerful name with a strong legacy. A legacy made of the seas, adventure and a new land waiting to be discovered.

Since I couldn't be Erik, I gave that name to my son. With it, he sails his own seas and, like Leif Erikson, he searches the horizon - searching for his own new found land.

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Wearing the Uniform

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He was a U.S. Marine. You could tell that without his Dress Blues. Ramrod straight and with conviction in his eyes, he shook my hand. I thanked him for his service and said it was good to have him home.

He was one month fresh from the War in Iraq, still on active duty and ... still over there.

He was wearing his Marine Dress Blues from his city's celebration of soldiers returning home. His mother was so proud of him as she walked him around to her women friends in the building.

These were the moms who listened to her stories, looked at the photos, cried over his injuries and the loss of his buddies, agonized when he returned to fight again and always prayed for his safe return. The ones who now rejoiced that he was home. That he was safe. Safe as only a group of moms can make a son.

As his mom introduced him to my teammate, his mother's hands cradled and touched his head, then touched on his shoulders in a steepled affect. He didn't pull away. This was Mother Magic.

She sees it as reassurance, but he knows of its true power. This is the magic a boy receives from his mom on his first day of school and when he returns as a prodigal son. Both hands touch the top of his head, over his ears, then down to his shoulders. She was gracing him with a mother's mantel - the ultimate protection.

They both serve their uniform. He as a member of the U.S. Marine Corps. She as his mother. Each protecting the other in their own way. Each doing a damn good job of it. Each living by the following words:

Semper Fidelis - Always Faithful.
Honor.
Courage.
Commitment.

That sounds like Family to me.

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Lunch Time Rhapsody

Timing is everything. So is the sense of touch.

She was moving towards the microwaves when I saw her. I was next to the Coke machines talking with a buddy. She looked real nice and she smelled even better. We'd been making eyes at each other for the past few months and chatted a wee bit, but office romances are tricky.

I don't know why, but I held my hand out to guide her past me.

Her blouse was made of something silky, something deserving of a late night of long kisses and soft music. My fingers ran across her back as though we were dancing in her living room with the lights low. It was a motion akin to stroking a lover's back amidst a lost afternoon of long, sensuous foreplay. Both of us drifting like a feather in a stream.

It gave me chills touching her like that. She took in a quick breath.

"I'll talk with you later."

She gave me a look. "I hope so."

I would have kissed her had no one been around.