Dress Sizes

To the left of me is solid and lanky dead asleep.  To my right in the corner under the watercolor is my computer.  Inside of me is my muse pushing me out of my bed away from a solid known quantity to the right hand corner of my room where the blank white word document and blinking curser are waiting impatiently.  She woke me from a peaceful and physically sated deep sleep, solid and lanky is responsible for this.  My nasty muse saw a woman today in red boots, they were not the sexy sort with pointy toes, high heels, nor were they sporting the words Tony Lama.
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Understanding the lyrics of Always On My Mind, at the fifty thousand foot view is a vastly different from knowing intimately what those words feel like when  wrapped snuggly around your lungs, pulling tighter and tighter as the days pile up behind you, until you fall to the ground flopping like a goldfish out of the glass bowl.  Saying I miss someone, as Johnny Cash would sing, is as if drinking decaf coffee-it’s pointless.

The lyrics of a song speak uniquely to its listener, as a different  as drinking a $15.00 vs. $1000.00 bottle of wine—depending on the moment, who you are with, what you are feeling, and the ambiance in your soul—the cheaper bottle can win hands down.  This song for me is everything I think that lover’s don’t know about one another.  They say the wrong things to one another, let pride have the final word, and move on into another’s arms without really wanting to, and in the end, they never let go of that one person ‘who is always on their mind’.  It’s that sort of a song that stirs the soul and boils the blood because, the song remembers when—another one of those songs that reminds us that music is rooted in our memories.

The first time I saw Willie, I hadn’t even reached forty inches.  I was fortunate to have a father that took me along with him to see musicians performing in small clubs around Hollywood (this was back before age restrictions and seat belts). I’d sit in red Naugahyde circular booths next to my dad, sipping my Orange Crush, listening to soon to be famous people.

I had been around just long enough to appreciate a full-bodied songwriter, and the poetry in a song, but I was also young and enjoyed a song for all the wrong reasons, good beat, empty lyrics, and the raw joy it gave me.   The first time hearing Willie sing, Always on My Mind, it flowed through my young soul without sticking.  My understanding of the song came later.  When I reached a seasoned state, after kissing a couple of boys, emptying a few boxes of tissues, picking up some baggage, I connected the dots, and the lyrics resonated. My breath dawdled in and out of my lungs, stopping at the chorus; it’s a coming of age song—having nothing to do with a number.

I was in a Willie frame of mind last night, and as I do when I am, I poured myself a glass from a $15.00 bottle of wine, and as expected, the song opened that sealed-tightly-never-to-be-opened-vault in the recesses of my mind, and that lost love of mine drifted out.    He came to me in my dreams, and was there when my eyes opened this morning before the chimes of my alarm echoed tenderly in the darkened room.  I shut them tightly as if that would keep him away; keep his presence from slipping between my conciseness and me. The weight of his presence was as real if he were lying on top of me.  I know that his unexplained presence in my sub-conscience last night means I was with him, in his.  It’s like that, as simple as breathing the same air.  We were not sharing a bed, but we were together in that viaduct where the sleepless dreamers sail hoping for a glimpse of a lost lover.

Life moves on, new love is born, and the heart keeps double time with the metronome, but when I hear this song, I cannot help but look over my shoulder at the past and remember him. The renewed awareness that he is lost in the viaduct of my memories buckles my knees and my ridged posture slackens.  I am longing for his touch, and the taste of the inside of his kiss—cayenne, salted honeydew melon. I tell myself it’s the song, and not his essence filling my lungs. He is always there; always close, always within reach, and always on my mind.

I think about Billy Bucks more or less depending on the connection with my family.  In recent months, the bond to my small family is weakening, so I think of him more. He was the glue that held us together; he bound each of us to our obligations to one another, to the family, to the love we share.   I am less inclined to be co-dependent these days.    I haven’t thought about it too much, or made any rash emotional decisions my Latin self is known for, only reflected on a life that was unexpected, and the bond that weakens.

I grew up in an untypical Latin family, but Latin it was.  We lived in one another’s pockets, and packed ourselves into small spaces, traveled yearly along Route 66, had 99 cent breakfasts at Stuckys, drove through the night to beat the snow, watched the sun rise over the four corners, and ate red chili in Santa Fe.  Our house on Hilltonia Drive was Grand Central Station in those early days.  Billy had the ‘Place’, our nickname for his dream came true restaurant-Bronco Bill’s.  He was a chef before it was chic, and had been trained by an even chicer chef; he even cooked on television long before there was Foodtv.com. 
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<list of lyrics in a song, or name of a song>

Heard it in a love song
Marshall Tucker

Daylight has found me here again – Allison Moore
If I lay here, if I just lay here, would you lay with me and just forget the world  – Snow patrol
What do you say to taking chances – Celine Dion
I’m on Fire, I got a bad desire – Bruce Springsteen
Some people get religion – Brandi Carlile
I call you when I need you, when my heart’s on fire – Tina Turner
It’s more than a feeling – Boston
Coma away with me – Norah Jones
And count every beautiful thing we can see –Neutral Milk Hotel
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Some people have religion, the established sort that includes a church for worship, weekly dues, pews, weekly prayer meetings-pot lucks included.  While others practice their faith abridged, Buddha, Yoga, Love, Treadmill, Christianity or other—plus or minus anything that doesn’t suit their perspective.  I refer to this, as Point of View faith—self-judgment and reflection are something that a person defines and designs, from and for, their individual point of view, but I digress into my own POV.

I’m not a cynic, only a realist.  I grew up believing.  I poured out my heart daily and again on Saturdays to Father McNamara, but more importantly to the celestial heavens. I am even guilty of long-winded discourses, debates, compromises, and then there was that one time I let myself flow with the tide and accepted, full stop, no questions asked, the big guy and his son into my life.  I swallowed faith like a down an out, country-western singer does when slamming back their fifth or sixth shot of Jack Daniels.  I believed, oh how I believed.  I over looked the fine print:
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I can’t see

It’s a mental state, my loss of sight.

I can’t see the end of my nose, or the tips of my toes, the battering on my heart, the lies you didn’t tell, the double entendres in your remarks, the way forward, but mostly how to understand the time we collected.

My heart tells me it was real, and that you were more than a fling, but less than a relationship,
certainly a bond, but what is the definition of something that endures probability and accumulates days and terminates at seven years.
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Disconnected.

There are days when my well of words runs low.  Will I lose the feeling to write, live, and write again and again?

My head is a ghost town, its cranial passageways have a fine layer of dust covering the ground, and my feet leave imprints. The tumbleweeds bounce off the walls leaving a trail of smudge marks on contact.  This is a lonely feeling for a writer, it’s when we are the most vulnerable, the most at risk, the most lost.  Our word pictures can’t connect.  It’s not dot-to-dot. It doesn’t work like that…

My words are suspended in their singular state inside the tumbleweed trying to connect, to form a sentence. 
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