Happy Valentine's Day
Here... have a virtual rose!
Happy Valentine's Day to YOU.
No, I don't have a Valentine. I even forgot that today was Valentine's Day was today.
And that's alright because YOU can be my Valentine.
When I think of Valentine's Day, I think of it as the first day I started walking on my own. My Auntie Joyce and my Mama Have told me the story numerous times.
This picture was taken on the day I took my first steps, February 14 1971.
39 years ago today... I started walking... That is so wild to me.
It was funny to hear Auntie reinact the whole thing. She said my Mama called her that Valentine's day and said in a robotic tone...
GET. OVER. HERE. WITH. THE. CAMERA!! SHE. IS. WALK.ING!!!!!!!!
So Auntie, being the family photographer and all, ran over and took the picture. I look lovely, my eyes so bright, my hair up in afro puffs! And check out that ancient chair in the background. Classic 1970's! LOL!!!
That's my fondest Valentine's day memory. (Even though I don't remember it.)
I'm not doing anything today. Just reading, doing chores, unpacking and washing clothes... same ol', same ol', you know.
I think the streets may be clear enough to go out and tare up something, but I'm enjoying my day at home. Church was pretty good this morning over the internet... gave me MUCH to think about.
I made a very nice ginger lemon lime sorbet today. It is VERY strong due to the fresh grated ginger I used, but the bite is cut by the tartness of the lemons and limes. I got this recipe from one of my vegetarian cookbooks, and man it is GOOD. I'll have to make this one again. I used raw sugar instead of refined sugar, and that substitution worked really well... So that was pretty cool!
I like to post up a poem or story for Valentine's day. I was looking through my recent writings, and I don't have anything particularly romantic that isn't pertinent to my storylines.
So, I want to post something that I've posted in the past on Valentine's day: a very complicated piece, of love and longing and suppose. I read it often, because I think it is one of the most interesting things I have ever written. It has a very slight poetic feel to it, and I like when I can capture something in that way.
It is called "Wine and Tears", and it is part 3 of "The Greyhound Blues" saga, posted here over the past 3 years. Background: It is from the point of view of a bus marshall (sort of like a sky marshall, but on the bus) Chandra Twist. She has a partner named Aaron Fletcher, and they work some of the more rowdy bus routes together. They pretend they don't know each other. One sits in the front of the bus, another sits in the back. That's the best way to watch everybody.
Chandra and Aaron are partners, but there's something more complicated going on here.
So, enjoy this repost of "Wine and Tears"...
Again, Happy Valentine's Day...
Wine and Tears
He steps on the bus, clean as always, wearing that same camel suede coat.
His favorite black thick ribbed turtleneck clings to his body like a long lost love.
His hair is neat, and looks like it was just trimmed with scissors fresh out the pack, specially manufactured for the cutting of his coarse hair .
He stops beside me just to tease me, wearing that scent, all citrusy and woodsy, that just had to be custom made just for him.
He was polite to the rowdy college crowd that sat just behind me. It was like him to do that, pinpointing the most boisterous crew on the bus and purposefully convincing them he’s one of them. I’d already assessed them, found them to be relatively harmless, although flirty, and oh so eager to practice that machismo that flows thick and fast through all mens veins.
“Hey baby, what’s your name?”
“Why a woman as fine as you riding the bus?”
“If you were my lady, you’d never have to ride the bus. I would take you wherever you wanted to go, even to the moon.”
I tell them I’m on a trip to visit my sick cousin, and the bus is cheaper than my gas guzzling car or an airline ticket. This explanation seems to work, as they express their sympathies and hope that everything will be alright.
But Fletcher does what he does well, bending over and saying my name like no other.
He never calls me Chandra, but calls me Twist, preferring my last my name to my first. Maybe it’s because it only has one syllable and not two, or because he can lazily leave off the “t” and draw out the “s”. The
“sssss” that flows from his lips when he says my name is like that from the serpent that moved through the garden, and hung from a tree, convincing Eve that she can be all she all she can be. . .
. . . if she would just listen.
I use to love it, but now I hate it. I wish he'd call me Chandra, or at least put my title Seargent in front of the “Twist” like everyone else does. But I play the game as always, never blowing our Nightrider cover, making it tight like a new pair of shoes in need of breaking in.
“Twist,” he says.
I cut my eyes at him, like I always do, then look all around like I’m checking to see if he’s addressing someone that I just don’t see. I look back up at him, then flip my hair back behind my ear, then look away like I always do.
“Yeah, I’m talking to you,” he says.
“Excuse me?” I say.
His duffel bag falls to the floor. It makes a hard thump, sounding too much like the bang of his fist against the door of my hotel room during that awful snowstorm last year. He was hurting that night, and needed to talk. . .
. . . or so he said.
He leans over, folding his arms and resting them on the back of my seat, getting a little too close for comfort. He smells like the rain that fell one night during our layover in a town whose name I can’t remember. Our bus had broken down and we sat on a bench much too close, waiting for another to come our way.
“Twist that pretty thick leg out the way so I can sit with you, sugar,” he says, with a quick lick of his lips for effect, even though the only one who can see this is myself.
I grip the laptop resting on my lap like I gripped his back the night we first made love a few months ago, the night of that big snowstorm in some town whose name I can’t recall. Again, he missed his wife who’d died a year ago, and needed to lay his head on my shoulder.
Or so he said...
I listened as he cried that night over missing, wanting, and needing his dear Nia. I missed her too, as she was indeed a good friend of mine. But I wasn't in the mood that night to reminesce for life long gone. I only
wanted to be alone with my two bottles of oak-aged Shiraz, bought on sale at the liquor store across the way.
But who would've known that wine and tears do blend so well. . .
Just like me and Fletcher did all through that stormy night, when his yearnings for Nia turned into yearnings for me, then back to yearnings for Nia.
To wake up the next morning with him long gone was the worst feeling I've ever had, especially since he didn't acknowledge me afterwards. . .
Acknowledge these feelings I have for him. . .
These thoughts I have flow through my heart strong like a raging river as I search for the words to say to him now.
“There’s no sugar here, player,” I say, my voice strong and nasty, my heart trembling like a baby fresh from a warm bath. “Uh, maybe you should check up front with the geriatric crew. You might find some sugar up there.”
I say it smooth as I can, like a woman spurned, not a woman sad. A series of oohs and foot stomps explodes from the back of the bus, letting me know that I’d done my job, and done it well. Fletcher glances over his shoulder at the laughing fellas, then the coal black eyes I love so much fell back against me, causing me to twitch ever so subtlely in places I don’t care to mention.
He turns and jokes with the guys, then turns back to me. I’d opened my laptop and was busy pecking away at letters, all consonants, no vowels. I lean my head back against the glass and for once, I am glad of it. The cold feel of it reminds me that I am here to handle business and to smother all things personal, to make sure those who ride this bus can anticipate of the pleasures of their destination and not fret over their safety.
But at times, I can’t help myself. I stare at this man, this man that I love, from afar no less. I ponder this man who I’ve had the pleasure to experience in the late midnight hour, when two become one, and no one knows.
But I know.
And he knows.
Even though wine mixes with tears, it’s not a good mix, as one dilutes the other.
Wine made weak, and cleansing tears made strong.
Whoever knew that such coming together could be so wrong.
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