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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
 Posted - 03/28/2015 : 18:31:26
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| After supper they blew out a thousand candles and walked under jacaranda. Lavender confetti sticking to the soles of their shoes. This world's petals in their hair. "Jus' tell the story," he said, "don't explain it." |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 03/29/2015 : 18:48:44
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I used a compass. Ten miles was my outside travel number from where I'd be working in LA. (Here's where the natives laugh.) I rented a ladder cottage on Westwanda in the hills above Sunset. A steep road of S curves with no room for two cars to pass. A half apron driveway where I had to open the garage door to pull in. The kitchen was a blindingly bright balcony. The rest of the house midnight dark. Like living inside a tree. A long narrow basement with wooden floor and a barre that ran the length of a mirrored wall. A man came in and sat down at the piano on Thursdays.
I went back several years ago. A sentimental journey. Every house had been remodeled. The road even narrower now. |
Edited by - Ailinn on 08/19/2017 18:33:16 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 04/01/2015 : 07:58:57
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Promissory Notes. The lifeguards children are raking the beach or walking on water. They want ice cream from the jingle truck. The lifeguards want a cold beer. Zinc oxide smear on their heroic noses watching the Spring break convoy heading south on the PCH. Smoke rising from miles of bluff campgrounds. Pavilions of tail-gaters barbecuing beside their RVs.
At the top of a cliff there's a stilted house strung around with wind chimes and tiny bells. Glass beads in the window. A shivering carnival presence on the walls. Outside, a welcome mat. A picnic table. A deck of Bicycle cards. |
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Craig
Firefly
Kyrgyzstan
3793 Posts |
Posted - 04/02/2015 : 03:07:53
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quote:
Originally posted by Ailinn
A deck of Bicycle cards.
Blue or red?
Craig |
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San Diego
Swinger
508 Posts |
Posted - 04/03/2015 : 08:36:54
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Morning, Craig. I have a houseful here with more arriving this afternoon. Marathon cooking. I considered making your cherry pie... but I don't have an extra week to do that.  Easter blessings to you, Janet and family. Love, Ro. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 04/11/2015 : 17:08:52
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| I meet her at the Daily Grill in Palm Desert, "...where they still know how to make a whisky sour." Marcella Delight. Appropriate name. Remarkably beautiful. (Those high cheekbones her famous photographer mined so originally in black and white.) "Some men break your heart making history," she said after I knew her a while. A world traveler who fled NYC after a 40-hour blizzard in 2008. Now she lives in Rancho Mirage and occasionally dines with the displaced Ventura ophthalmologist who, "...insists you have 'surreal vision'," she's laughing. He's also joined her in a poetry workshop, "Quite humorous," she's serious now. "The rest... Ah, well...I get on with it. You know how that is..." After lunch we wander through Clementine Market where I find treats for my children who live in another world. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 04/11/2015 : 17:18:49
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It's a long drive up and over the menacing Santa Rosas. A dangerous vertigo climb past the big horn sheep lookout. Wooden crosses and plastic lilies at Carrizo Road. I pull over for a few moments. Turn off the AC and roll the windows down.
Surreal vision. His lightning-sliced palms interrupted lifelines. Water skiing off Route 66 in the middle of the Mojave. Any close encounter at the Bagdad Café. "...stopping everyone without chains on the mountain," he said. 109 degrees on the desert floor. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 04/22/2015 : 18:39:07
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| She bakes loaves in the yard oven beyond a blur of smoke trees. He made the oven from bricks and broken stone. He showed her how to arrange the stones to adjust the temperature. He's uncannily mechanically inclined. And industrious. He places the easel in the center of the overgrown courtyard where mornings spread open and the prolific vineyards unfold. Steep steps on a sloping hillside. His voice rising and falling. His animated sermon of light. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 04/26/2015 : 18:36:28
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| Down the sand blown road the coast curves to commerce. Hand-made chess sets. Cuban cigars. Corn in cones on every corner. Mariachis and oyster bars. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 04/26/2015 : 19:35:37
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| Fever dreams on the other side. Ink-stained sheets and dog-eared pages. Snow on the bureau in a souvenir globe. The couple inside perpetually dancing. Tall hotels. Dominos down the beach. Desperately beautiful. She won't deny that. |
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BarbraG
Windchimer
1824 Posts |
Posted - 04/28/2015 : 19:19:48
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| She carried it all deep inside her, the rolling waves and the thunder drumming loudly. Darkness was a mirror in her heart, that reflected the sadness in her eyes. Lightning everywhere, slamming down with enough power to light the brightest star even more . But, she was looking for the sun. She was always looking for the sun. |
Edited by - BarbraG on 04/29/2015 12:23:36 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 04/30/2015 : 19:44:37
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Vertigo Hill. He's driving looking down on clouds. "...There...that one alone...an orphan." Indelible words he said perilous lifetimes ago.
She said "...sleep..." and rolled the window down. "Not now," he said, his mouth full of smoke. His words on fire, "...one more thing an' it's...it's...it's..." Red Flag Warning when the traffic light turned his profile green. A three-masted two-lane outta town story. Match books and menus and paper napkins. An invented dictionary. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 05/04/2015 : 19:16:28
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| They sit on windy corners with cups in their hands watching jets clear the parking garage. Under the flight paths roar and rumble they read each other's lips. They move in and out of white-washed rooms flooded with sunlight on India Street where something is always occurring. Plus-tides coming up through the floorboards. Stones turning and murmuring under their bed. Fairytale lights in market-tree branches blinking in the window all night. High-wire acts in a seaside city where trumpet vines climb the crumbling cliffs stealthy as twilight. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 05/05/2015 : 20:01:21
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| The mute Fortune Teller talks to The Sailor in Sign. A bridge in the picture. Shore birds cries. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 05/05/2015 : 20:22:54
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| He has a safecracker's ear and truth serum in his show-and-telling. "...do you remember...?" he says as the head towards Little Italy. Blick Art and Mona Lisa's sly smile and Specialty Pizza Menu. "Every night. Every morning before I open my eyes," she signs. They walk along the Embarcadero. There's the Star of India rocking in the harbor. Cruise ships with their Shangri-La promise. The Coaster, the Amtrak, the Metrolink, the trolley. The beautiful curved Coronado Bridge. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 05/10/2015 : 00:25:26
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| House at the top of Carrizo Road off Pines to Palms CA 74 where the wind never stops blowing. Top of the final world finally. Pavement ends. "Why?" people ask. "Why would anyone choose to live here?" |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 05/11/2015 : 17:11:23
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| Carrizo Road. All rock, chaparral and pinon pine. And a treacherous unpaved road in case the Fire Department had to race up to Jack and Dorothy's. Dorothy was Texas, and Jack, Oklahoma. He took a lot of ribbing for that. "Jus imagine! Me! Marrin' an Okie!" (43 years wed.) She'd stand behind him at the kitchen table. Her small palms resting on the back of his chair. Her fingertips dancing some tune on his shoulders. She Blue-Ribbon gardened in the half-dozen raised beds he made. Wore her aprons inside-out to protect the printed side. Jack was a collector. Old pistols and maps. He gave me a map of California before Interstates 5, 10, and 15. We met them in an antique shop waiting to get off the mountain without chains. "Gotta get yourselves a place up here. Get shuck of the world and closer to the Lord," he said one night when we were all sitting on their wide deck listening to the wind name the stars. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 05/13/2015 : 22:11:09
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| A sudden rain scours the air and suds the oil-slick freeways. She's waiting in the car rental lot overlooking the runways blinking traffic. A jump-suited crew is sweeping the water away. Mirror-smooth blacktop where his boots appear as if he's been standing there forever. She's afraid to fly and steals things when she's anxious. Newspapers. Plastic forks if they're white. Sugar-In-The-Raw packets by the handful. He has a theory about that. He takes her hand and they head towards the terminal. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 05/17/2015 : 19:09:55
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| He stands on the tiny mosaic balcony. Insistent brushes in his steady hand. The easel anchored with bungee cords. Chipped step and wrought iron rail. She leans over the clothesline three stories high. Chickens and roosters in the courtyard below. The girls as loud as the boys. And the clamorous shout-out maze of harbor vendors pitching their wares at the edge of the sea. Oysters in puddles. Cognac-grilled shrimps. Sea urchin and abalone. Sun-wide days falling down on their shoulders. His paintings shining with plenary light. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2154 Posts |
Posted - 05/18/2015 : 17:26:20
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| He tips back in his gravity-defying chair. A satisfied grin on his face. He could balance that thing on a tightrope. "Showoff," she says. He leans back even further. Almost horizontal with the floor. This time he's going over. But no. It's as if the air becomes complicit and won't let him fall. She's examined the chair many times. Solid oak and sturdy enough to stand on. Never pretty. The anchor in the kitchen he carved his initials on. |
Edited by - Ailinn on 10/16/2017 08:56:57 |
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The Nightly Vigil