Lights

Mickey Blue Eyes is back. The light in his sky blue eyes is on. What a wonderful thing to look at and see the spark for life again.

I have been painting like a fiend trying to get some work done for a show in October. Writing and blogging have taken a back burner suddenly for another creative outlet. The other morning I walked to the library to return books, magazine and movies. When I got there I realized I had forgotten the movies. Instead of putting if off for another day, I made myself walk all the way back home on a different path and grab them and then return to the library by yet another path. After selecting new movies I took yet another path home. It's nice that in this small town I can take so many different twists and turns from all the others.

Taking the alley that runs behind my house and taking photo's for future paintings. A few months back I had taken this walk and am now working on a painting from that walk. I take a ton of pictures and let them soak in my head for awhile. Always, Always there is one that sticks out in my head as one that I will paint. I feel that way about the Sunflower picture at the top of the blog. I will paint that one someday. Something about the Christmas lights just gets to me in that left corner.

As I walked down the alley I took pictures and passed the back of my house. It is not a pretty sight from this angle. Overgrown with rosehips and the remnants of a garage that collapsed. Overgrown and dangerous so that I cannot take a shortcut through it to my house. I have to walk the entire alley. When I reach the end; Ellie's apple tree's have tossed lovely apples into the alley I decide I'm going to take some home. I add those to my growing pile of shit I'm carrying now on this jaunt. Making a left and heading back down 5th street proper. My friend Leah is on her porch. I stop in to visit.

She wants the scoop on Nick. Her husband is one of Nicks good buddies. At one point in time I lived right next door. So we go way back before children, her children anyway. She coined the phrase, "twenty minutes pregnant." We talk for some time, but then I must head to work. I gather all my shit and head down the hill to my house.

My favorite little sister called today. I answered from the bathroom soaking wet from the shower. She asked me not to put her on speaker. That is serious... so I said can I call you back in five minutes? And got dressed real quick and called her back.

The news was not pretty, even when you think death is the best option for someone in your life, when it happens it is still traumatic. My nephew by marriage is my sisters foster nephew/son. His Mom died, they found her today. There has to be an investigation because they think she has been deceased for two days and they will need to figure out the cause of death. More than likely it will be diabetic related or a drug overdose. She was not a stellar woman most of the time but before she got back into meth she was a decent mother and I'm sorry for her little boy.

Drug addicts, abuser and users have figured heavily in my life lately. I picked up the inside informant at Sundown today after spending the weekend with him and his Dad, hoping to heal and get him on the right track. I met the guys in his group and they were just like him, hopeful to get their lives back together and after 3 days with them I grew really attached to them.

I learned quite a bit about enabling, not being a co-dependent and it was all in all a very enlightening healing weekend.

"It's a no fault disease." This is what they teach. It is no one persons fault. They may choose to take a drink, a drug but it is in their DNA and the addiction is no ones fault and that its a disease.

noncommital

Giving no clear indication of what this is. I called him that the other day Mr. Noncommital. The pressure from outside sources to name what we have going on is pressuring me... and I waver.

For many reasons I'm happy with the status quo but sometimes I do want to know where it is going or what we are calling this.

Everybody knows. Yes everybody does know. But we don't.

My last boyfriend might have been when I was about the age of eighteen. Then I was married for nearly twenty years. So one thing that is blatantly clear to me... I don't understand the rules.

We sit on the porch steps talking. The new month of September already bringing the changes in the air and hues of color in the day. An intense conversation. About needs and wants. I need to understand the rules of PDA or at least suddenly have the need to show it to each other. I need to be asked to do things in public as a couple and not as two people that are trying to hide it from a small town that just knows. He has never been anything but a boyfriend and is afraid of commitment, or losing his freedom to be the butterfly that he is. A social butterfly and friend to all. He has never been married and does not understand that type of commitment. Those are the needs and we are figuring out how to meet them or not.

I'm not the type of person who is clingy. I have my own life, interests and friends that allow me to be happy with doing my own thing. I'm not the type of person to be checking up on somebody. Sneaking peeks at phones or private matters.

I would love to take you to Thailand.

That sentence spoke volumes. It means he is not secure enough in his world to provide me with the things he thinks I need. But that is not what I need. Sure I would love to go to Thailand but the things I need are simpler than that. I just want to trust that he cares about me and that we do things together as a couple. I don't need a title, but I want to be able to trust that if we keep going they way we are going, that he treats me as the other half of the couple. 

There... I think I figured it out.

Couple:

1

a : two persons married, engaged, or otherwise romantically paired

b : two persons paired together

Raw

Today is a good day considering the amount of turmoil that can happen in a matter of days in ones life. Not sure I'm going to talk about it much in a blog format but in some form the feelings have to come out.

So I will be cryptic and those that know me can read between the lines.

Captain Phil Harris's son Jake Harris of The Deadliest Catch was at Sundown last week. I'm not sure that this is common knowledge but I do have an inside informant. Jake Harris only lasted two days, which is too bad. My inside informant seems to be doing okay. He is still there and that is what matters. But in the way addicts do, they start being brutally honest when coming clean.

Sometimes that honesty can be shocking. How do they get to the places they arrive? The only thing I have ever been addicted to is cigarettes and I'm not sure I always understand; the why, the power, the draw of such powerful drugs. Because in my mind; why would you ever take the risk to have to live a life like that.

This week has been tough in so many ways and raw is the word that fits.

I'm confused deeply about my love life.
I have loved many drug addicts.
Money is tight.
The wondering behind why I seem to pick men who do not want to have a relationship is wearing me out.

I'm restless; worried, writing in many places trying to figure it all out and it is stretching my heart in a million directions. Lying and keeping a secret; telling myself it is not my story to tell, to loved ones. All this is combining into one big combustible fire ball keeping the skin so tightly taut that every thought is raw.

Full circle; I have mentioned that before in other blogs. To return to Roslyn has my life coming full circle. Everything I ran from is happening again. The point this time I think is that by running it allowed me to be able to deal with it this time. I spend so much time with Nick and the memories this time invokes have been relentless and I'm dealing with them one by one. Followed by another drug addiction so close to my heart that I have to stand and fight this time, instead of walking away. But it has also opened many wounds, fears and worries. 

I was restless last night and lonely. Nick must have sensed it in some way because he was tired from work and that long weekend of endless baseball games but stopped in to visit and then came back by after I was done working, much later in the evening and still rallied to walk to Marko's with me to play an intense game of ping pong. He is a good friend and I might be falling in love with him and that worries me constantly. Because I want to... but I want it to be mutual.

Love is its own drug. Sneaky, addictive and terrifying.

Sparks

18 Candles

Research and looking for a spark.
A spark of interest taking me further than the last one.

The last one was Friday morning after watching Contraband. I liked that movie. You did not have to worry about who the bad guy was, because they were all bad. It took place in New Orleans and was about smuggling. But that gave me a little spark about bad versus good. Plus the location for gun running had possibilities.

Levels of bad.

Leading to 'write what you know'. I know Seattle and looking for a spark of interest about running guns and prohibition to tie it all together.

I finished my painting. Man did I struggle with this one. The spark has gone out of me for it and I struggled to get the bottom right corner right. Basically just wanted out of that painting. While my friend Ginger and I were smoking on the front porch of the Gallery I was telling her my ideas behind Mil ( Honey) that were filtering through and that I was sorting out. Another painter and writer Gerald came and sat down beside us and mentioned that his wife Charlene had wrote her thesis on prohibition in the Upper County.  She kindly let me borrow it.

Getting and gathering all the feelings behind the story. As always the ideas behind the beginning before I write are fascinating.. ( to me anyway) because of how much they will change and grow when I start to write it. 

Smoke signals

Monday I stepped out on the porch for my 3:00 break; I glanced to the left of my porch out of habit. The first glance did not quite register and then I looked again. A thundercloud. It sunk in I looked again. Wow that is one big thundercloud. But I paused for a moment and cocked my head, thinking...soaking the thoughts. How could we have a thundercloud with no clouds? We have had no clouds for days. A chill crosses the skin of my upper arms and that sinking feeling in your stomach mixed with that feeling I can best describe as your blood gets steamed under your skin making you break out in a sweat.

Eric my neighbor comes out on his porch that sits alongside mine and he glances left out of habit too. Looks over at me, "It that a thundercloud?"
"I was just wondering the same thing" I reply, "It kind of looks like a fire."
"I think it is a fire too. Scary.'
"Yeah."

At six I headed down to the park to watch Nick's baseball game as I walked a float plane made a pass over my head. Heading to the lake. It looks like a float plane but it can fill up with water. I don't know what they call those. But it has started making passes over us to Lake Cle Elum. I reached the park and watched the game and as I walked home I ran into Nate my renter at the shortcut to home. We talked about the fire and he said Tammy and Scott lost their house. Again with the chills up my arms. Later in the evening it was reconfirmed that they had not lost their house and it is the house in the picture above.


Tuesday morning I drove to Cle Elum and you could see the fire as it burned Lookout mountain. I took the back way up the Tanuem and took pictures along the way. After I left much of it burned as the winds gusted and stirred up deep trouble.  The week was long with the following two days hot and hotter, no wind and yet a small breeze that changed direction causing chills for the third time this week to run across my arms. Blowing the smoke up the valley to us. It sets heavy and sultry in the air. We are hoarse and raspy after three days of inhaling heavy smoke. The kids schools and playgrounds are colored with the domes of hundreds of fire fighters tents. 984 as of this Saturday, fireman helping us to get this contained.

Last night in the dark I walked down the street to meet Nick at the 'Y' to head to the Brick for awhile to listen to 'Down North' a friend of Nicks from High School, girlfriend was playing in the band. As I made my way down the hill. Two Fire trucks pulled to the house I walked in front of and some firefighters got out looking exhausted. Startled I said "Hi," and then stopped and said "Thank you, Thank you."

"Your welcome."
 

That is so gay, dude.

Friday morning pretty bright and pretty early a sassy red head showed up on my doorstep for her Aunt Shanie weekend. We painted, we walked, we met people and we had a dinner party.That was Friday. Saturday we walked to the Fischer's and got fresh eggs and went to the park again. With big plans to go fishing in the afternoon.

I invited Nick for our ritual Friday dinner and then also invited my friends Shannon and Mario. With Miss O in residence it would be a full house. I planned my menu: Sirloin burgers with fresh Havarti on Cle Elum Bakery buns, Kielbasa with Morels and Basmati Rice. Fresh salad from the garden and from the vines at the 'pumpkin house' picked raspberries and strawberries to eat with the Almond Gateau Breton.

The night before Nick was over and as we stood in the dark on the front porch. I told him that Mario and Shannon were gay and coming for dinner. He started laughing and telling me a story that had me laughing into the dark summer night. Earlier in the day he had been telling his friends that he had a 'Cleopatra bath' and that they needed to feel his skin it was so smooth and soft.
        They looked at him and said "what are you gay now?"
        He said "does that make me gay?"
        "Yes dude that is gay, especially if you are asking us to feel and smell your skin."
        "I dont think I'm gay. Does it make me gay?" As he says this to me he pushes back from the porch and glances down at his package covered by his pants. "I'm pretty sure I wasn't gay last night." Then with a twinkle in his green eyes, he says "It really worked though my skin is so smooth and soft." Chuckling he glances over at me. "But they told me, It's gay dude."

Laughing hard, "I say, "I can't really believe you are going around admitting to taking a bath like that in this town. I'm kind of hoping you mentioned that I was in the bath with you. Makes it not seem so gay."
 
He had me laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes and I'm not really doing the story justice but since he was late to dinner Friday I told Shannon and Mario the story. They laughed and asked does he not want to meet us? Is that why he is late, Oh no, I said he will be here and when he got there, they really liked him. Guy Shannon can be hard to impress and even said at one point. "He is so not your type and I like him." We drank an outrageously expensive bottle of whiskey that is the best I have ever tasted, laughed and talked in the hot night.

Mario and Shannon also brought me four bottles of Wicked a carbonated Vodka drink from the British Isles. Tastes like a blue raspberry popsickle and it has been years since I have had it. Just as good in the U.S. as in Dublin. Maybe ironic the last time I had it was in Ireland with Shannon and my Irish man (whom he did not like.)

We took Miss O up to Cooper Lake to fish and canoe. She had never fished before and was not fond of canoeing. But that charming smile and kindness of Nicks won her over and she had a blast. We rowed to the end of the lake to where the Cooper River feeds into the lake and it was so shallow and refreshing in the hot summer sun that we had to get out and play on the island.

After fishing we headed back to town and stopped by the lake for the sunset. Miss O and I made a sand castle and then headed home to a movie in bed. The wrong one fell asleep, she woke me to say my phone was ringing.