Georgia on my Mind

With its eyes set firmly on occupying Georgia, Russia scares me more than at any time since the symbolic end of the Cold War. It has continued to advance toward the seat of Georgian government and shows no sign of stopping anytime soon. State-controlled news sources are concocting conspiracy theories that lay the blame at Dick Cheney’s and George W.’s feet.

While I would like to blame the dynamic duo for any bad thing I can, those allegations ring false. Neither is engaged enough or cares enough to engineer an all-out war on a small country of no strategic value. And if they did, they wouldn’t be on the side of the Russians.

For anyone that wants to know what a nuclear melt-down looks like, this is it. Just read the news.

They won’t use any nuclear weapons because they know that Moscow would be a pile of rubble 15 minutes later. But the simple fact that they might deters action by anyone else.

The US is stuck between a hard spot and a nutcracker. Our nuts are in the middle east, and they’re being squeezed pretty hard. And we can’t spare anything for a Georgian engagement, whether it’s under the auspices of the UN or other.

The US government can posture all it wants, but the Russians know that this is the time to reclaim territory. There is no one with the means to oppose them.

I don’t know how all this will turn out, but I am trepidatious at best and scared as all hell at the worst.

Eating Rainbows

On clear summer nights, the sky in Texas becomes a surreal blue that makes everything framed against it look like a movie prop. The crispness of the fading light deceives the eye, making three-dimensional objects look flat and round at the same time. Trees inhabit both a one-dimensional and a multi-dimensional world. It's a trick of the eye, I suppose.

But I always think of Alice and her Wonderland. Or of Billy Pilgrim, who came unstuck in time.

Nevertheless, it still takes my breath away. A tree becomes living art for that short time until the light fades. Buildings seem closer and larger at close range.

Sometimes I wander outside and feel like a little boy seeing his first rainbow. I'm all awe, wonder and questions. "Where'd that come from? Who made it? Can I touch it? What’s it made of? What does it feel like? Can we keep it?"

I know the science of rainbows all these years after I was a little boy, but I still think of them as miracles, gifts from God, and not atmospheric phenomena.

I’ve grown up, but there’s still a little boy inside who knows what they taste like : light, hope, joy.

Just like the Texas sky on summer nights when it glows a color of blue that I had forgotten existed.

May the wonder and awe never leave me.

Love and Marriage...and Ghosts

Mama and Daddy were married in my grandmother's living room. It was a simple ceremony between Christmas and New Year's (December 27, I think) in 1962. Mama was a good bit younger (and shorter) than Daddy, especially since she was only 18. She had just graduated from high school a few months before.

On the way to the his funeral, she told me she didn't think she'd ever marry again. I didn't say much. Just told her she might change her mind. And that it would be okay by me. Daddy always wanted her to be happy, and I don't think that changed when he died.

A little over a year later, she hasn't changed her mind. She watches reruns of old high school football games on a local cable channel just to catch a glimpse of him on the sidelines.

I told her I still loved Rich, my first partner who died 13 years ago. But I've been with Shannon for 9 years. I still love Rich, and Shannon lives with a ghost. I can love them both.

She may meet someone down the way that changes her mind about her driving-to-the-funeral pronouncement. But it's still pretty recent. A little over a year. Too soon to tell.

I've told her that I wouldn't object to her re-marrying, just as long as the man was as good as Daddy.

Not sure she can find one, but I'd settle for a good imitation. Just as long as he made her happy.

Call me a sentimental fool. Just don't call me an old one.

Hail Mary, Full of Grace

When the clouds grew tall and dark on the north-western horizon, I knew it was time to go across the street. Joe had died not long before, I wasn’t working and Mary and I were both afraid of storms. So I walked over, knocked on the door and sat down to strong, strong coffee and cake.

Mary always had cake.

We drank our coffee and picked at our cake, never really eating much, because we both knew that this one was the “big” one. Cigarettes helped calm our nerves.

Right up until the sky turned black, almost like night, the wind started howling and the rain whipped up under the eaves, trying to blow the whole roof off. The lightning could be awful, striking over and over again within spitting distance of her kitchen windows.

That’s when we walked around the house, and she showed me the crucifixes that Joe had left in the windows. “As long as those are there, we’ll be okay," she'd say in that gravelly voice I miss so much. "I don’t believe it, really, but Joe did, and they’ve kept us safe up til now. Some things you just don’t mess with.”

I didn't argue.

The winds howled, the rain beat down, and we sat at the kitchen table picking at our cake, swigging on coffee and smoking. We always ended back up there, at that little kitchen table, the same place, time after time after time.

She told me stories about her life. She was born not too far away, in Hickman, KY. She had family here, there and everywhere. She married Joe and lived with him in Chicago most of her life. Joe wasn’t Polish, like always said: he was Sicilian.

Joe got Alzheimer’s, and his decline was painful to watch. The decline started when he wandered away the first time and left Mary frantic. Neighbors found him down the road, but by then, he was having trouble getting in an out of the bath. A few months later, she couldn’t lift his legs to get him in or out and he didn't know how to.

We were both alone that summer, Miss Mary and me. Joe had died earlier in the year, and I couldn’t find a job. So we rode it out together. Both of us, I think, felt a bit powerless. We found our power in each other.

Mary died a few years later. Or at least the physical part of her did. As long as I’m alive, she will be, too.

Every time the weather gets bad, I remember her.

Hail Mary, full of grace.