Barefoot Iowa

But she’s never boring.

I just attempted to Google capitalism ideologies and spent 20 minutes reading about some Australian dude who claims to be the long lost love child of the new C & C Monarch Factory.

I learned nothing valuable.

My idea was to go on this, “let’s write a theme paper like we did in our college days,” and, well, honestly, it ended pretty much the same as those did. I excelled much more on theme papers I wrote for other people. Little side gig.

I wanted to prove possessions are temporary so money should essentially be valueless in the grander scheme of good vs evil, yin and yang, the soul and the ephemeral. That’s not the word. Whatever.

That led to money being, “the root of all evil,” and I had to listen to Ugly Kid Joe and that reminded me of a certain orange turnip who shall not be named, and there I was, trying to remember what I was Googling, staring at my home page and the top article suggested for me was the whole Australian love child guy and now I wish the Queen had been my grandma. I’d have made cookies for her.

Because even my big butt is temporary.

Temporal. That’s the word I was looking for. 1. From the late Latin, temporalis/tempora, meaning, “the temples”. (Of the head, not the church). 2. Related to the concept of time.

As opposed to temporary. You know, the opposite of permanent.

Like money.

And my train of thought.

But I think you were full of shit. Life isn’t what happens while you’re busy making other plans.

Life happens while you wait.

Kids spend their entire childhoods waiting until they’re bigger. Waiting for Halloween. Christmas. Their best friend’s birthday party.

Teenagers can’t wait until Friday. The game. The dance. Sleeping in tomorrow morning. Graduation.

Young adults look forward to making money, getting out of their parent’s house, getting their own, real life started.

Pregnant moms-to-be wait for their next appointment, finding out their due date, learning what parts their little darling will come out with.

Parents with young children can’t believe it’s already time for Kindergarten. That might be the fastest wait there is, the wait from when a child is born until they go to school. That wait goes by in a flash. You just don’t realize how fast it’s going until you get to the doors of the school.

We wait for winter holidays. Spring break. Summer vacation.

Test results. News. Pay raises. Job evaluations.

We wait for events. Activities. The score.

We wait for our order, our bill, our procedures.

We wait in waiting rooms, our cars, our living rooms.

We wait by our phones, for messages, for texts, for emails, for contact.

When someone you miss says they will visit, you almost forget how to wait. You can’t remember what to do with yourself. Where to rest your hands. What to look at (out the window).

You clean up a little around the house. Take a shower. Feed the cats one too many times (cats hate waiting).

You listen for a car to pull up. Or a motorcycle. Maybe a truck.

You get annoyed at the mail carrier for interrupting your waiting by not being the person you are waiting for.

You get annoyed at John Lennon, Saint of Saints, for saying, “Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans,”

Because he was fucking wrong.

Life happens while you wait.

The person who came up with, “Waiting is the hardest part,” was wrong too.

Receiving bad news is worse.

Someone not coming home is worse.

Not getting a phone call, a visit, or a good fucking test result… all worse.

Sitting beside your mom’s bed, holding her hand to let her know she’s not alone as she waits for the very last time- bad.

Your mom dying- worse.

But sometimes life has other plans.

I’ve lost my mind the most.

Normally I don’t write two journal/blog/diary thingies in a week, let alone a day, but I’m sitting here just realizing, there’s no one left to talk to. (I don’t always pay attention but when I do I’m still very wtf).

Is that pathetic? Eh. Maybe. Do I care?

Fucking obviously, here I am journal/blog/diary-ing twice in one day.

Wtf do people do with the second half of their lives?

My kids are grown, my grandkids are off doing whatever this years version of, “Too cool for you, granny-o,” does these days, the hubs, literally, cannot stand the sound of my voice (he looks at me as if my face will come unhinged and bats will fly out my mouth) (they fucking might) and everybody else is dead.

My C8 disk is ferked because I slept wrong.

Active sleeping is too much for me now.

L3/L4, L4/L5, L5/S1 were already ferked so I can’t even active sit-up-straight without my left arm turning into pins and needles, my left ass cheek feels like I rode Ragbrai all month, my sciatic nerve makes its presence known all the way down to my left pinky toe and my right ankle randomly stops acting like an ankle and does an excellent imitation of, oh, I dunno, something without bones.

There is supposedly a federal program or two that non-working people and/or physically ferked people and/or mentally ferked people (I can say these things because I am all of these things) can apply for and get, Oooh, free money! (that all us working stiffs actually paid into for decades so its not actually free, you bananahead) but a person has to be terminally ferking ferked to actually get paid any of that money so early retirement it is.

Woo-hoo! Two dollars a day for the rest of my life.

Okay, that is slightly exaggerated but only just.

The bad news: There’s nothing for dinner. The good news: There’s lots of it.

“No one wants to work these days,” they say.

Well, toots, point me in the direction of a job that will pay me to sit waaay over on my right ass cheek with my left arm above my head and my left leg bent under me like I’m about to pray to the 50-yard-line while yelling praise the lord through goddamned ill fitting lisp-enhancing ugly af dentures and I’m your gal!

Pay me to blog, bitch. (I can say that, there’s no one really here).

Or buy me a soda. (Seriously).

Or let me read this really funny thing to you I just read to myself because there’s no one to ferking talk to. I would take that as payment. Just let me rattle on at you for awhile. But, you have to be really good at fooling me into believing you find me interesting or I will unhinge my jaw and barf up bats.

One of these days I’m going to drive my mind out into the country and leave it on a gravel road.

Just watch, it’ll beat me home.

And it will still be craving nicotine.

To make a list of your top ten favorite people

And then, by order of whatever powers that be, that list is killed off, one at a time…

1. Today 2. Two years later 3. Four years later 4. One year later 5. Six months later 6. Two years later 7. Six months later 8. Two years later 9. Two months later 10. Three years later

How fucking sane would you be?

Just how well would you hold your shit together?

Would you be given any leeway on just how much bullshit you would be expected to handle?

Would you appreciate the survivors at least a little more?

Or would you be mad at the world, kicking rocks at anyone who came near your bubble?

Would you think you were cursed?

Would you question karma?

Would you give up?

When you’re the last man standing, would you keep standing?

Or would you sit the fuck down?

I’ll save a seat for you, over here on my survivor’s bench, if you get tired.

Because, me, myself, I am fucking tired.

I’m going to sit a spell.

Catch the breeze in my hands.

Feel the sun on my face.

Breathe.

I may or may not stand up again.

But I am fucking done with lists.

I don’t pay attention.

“You need some of those things, what kind do you use?”

I dunno.

“What if I got these, would these work?”

Okay.

When do you need them? Who bought them last time? What is wrong with you? Hellooo. Are you in there?

In where?

I was going somewhere with this.

What did I come in here for?

The first baby I met who wasn’t me was my oldest niece. I didn’t sing to her until she was a grownup.

We were close in age so I didn’t do much more than stare at her for about eight months and wonder what in hell she was thinking or doing.

I do remember one time, before she started to walk, she crawled really fast down a long hallway of the apartment where they lived. So I crawled with her. And she laughed. That’s when I decided I’d love her.

But I didn’t sing to her until Salt n Pepa came out with Shoop and gave me something to sing to her. Now, if it comes on and I’m near her, you can bet your ass Ima Shoop at her. My niece is my witness.

When my next niece was born I decided it was okay to sing to babies because babies don’t care if you are good at it. This niece seemed to like me no matter what I did, so I sang things like Fairies Wear Boots and Highway to Hell at her.

When my son was born, I sang Mississippi Mud to him. He was colicky. Not from my singing.

My mom discovered the magic of that song for him one night while she babysat. She’d walk with him, back and forth through the living room of my apartment. Singing, walking, rocking, bouncing. And he stopped crying.

This is when I decided the magic of music had very little to do with the vocal ability of the singer- the magic of music is the music itself. My mom could sing her curtains off. With me, it’s a toss up.

The words of a song when you sing them, if you believe the lyrics will calm a crying baby- the baby will believe it too. My mom showed me how a song can change the mood of a room.

A song can change the mood of the person singing, too.

My mom always said, “Don’t shush me when I’m singing. It means I’m happy.”

My dad would hear her sing and say, “Listen to that. Your mom is happy.”

When my daughter was little I sang Under the Bridge to her. Or Where Did You Sleep Last Night.

At bedtime, I’d sing to both of them. Dream a Little Dream. Wishing on a Star.

I sang Down in the Willow Garden a few times and decided it was best to just hum that one. A song about a murdered girl, no matter how sweetly sung, is still a song about a murdered girl.

With the oldest grandgirl I sang Waiting for My Ruca, By the Rivers of Babylon, and I Love My Baby & My Baby Loves Me.

But the one song she would not sleep without was Glinda the Good Witch’s song.

Come out, come out, wherever you are…

Once, when she was sobbing great buckets from missing her granny, my daughter called me up and said, “She won’t stop crying until you sing the song,”

And meet the young lady who fell from a star…

I sang it. And my grandgirl’s tears stopped and I kept singing until she was all the way asleep. And when I hung up the phone, I sobbed great buckets.

This next bit I’m just going to hum because it’s a secret… I miss having someone to sing to.

Typically, math is not a topic I invest much time on. Sometimes it just shows up.

Twenty minutes ago I caught myself mathing.

Because I feel fucking old.

My mom got old. She never felt old.

My dad got old. He never felt anything but.

I’ve turned into my dad.

I am 55.

I feel 86.

When my mom was 55, I was 20.

On this date during that year I was 35 weeks pregnant.

My mom had six children and nine grandchildren (almost ten) then.

Actually, she had ten grandchildren (almost eleven) but we didn’t know about Christopher yet.

She’d have been excited about Christopher.

She liked surprises.

She liked parties. Dancing. Getting out of the house and getting the stink blown off. Driving to Oregon by herself.

I can’t remember the last time I went in my own backyard.

20. 35. 55. 86.

The baby will be 35 on his next birthday. The same age my mom was when I was born.

Math makes my heart hurt.

I will talk about things I know and ask questions about things I don’t know. I will learn and research and read and have conversations. I will write and spell and use grammar.

Some day, when I get bigger, no one will say, “You don’t know things, you cannot have a turn to talk,” or, “You are not smart, you cannot learn.”

Some day, when I get bigger, I will have interesting hobbies. No one will say, “You have too many things, they are terrible and boring because they are not interesting to me and they are in my way,”

Some day, when I get bigger, my best friend will be a cat. He will give me long, slow blinks before he naps on my lap. No one will say, “You cannot have a cat because you are nobody,”

Some day, when I get bigger, I will be somebody, even if I am only somebody to my cat.

Some day, when I get bigger, I will have a blog and I will do writing exercises like, “Practice writing in a childish voice,” and no one will say, “What the fuck is she writing about now?”

Maybe every word of this will be a lie                   I'd like to be the me I was with you when I was wrong about you and who I was                             I haven't changed                                                    Faith is an invisible foe                                           This is a window                                                    There are some people who should always be high

Maybe not all of this is a lie                                       I used to like birds                                                       I haven't changed                                                        There are too many songs about sunshine and not enough about books, bells and candles     you should stop peeping in windows                     I used to be birds                                                      they told me to write so I wrote until they told me don't 

Maybe some of this is true                                                               you complain about your gun shy dog as if you are a unicorn                                                                    I have changed                                                           you look familiar and so important but I remember when you were a moth

Maybe every word of this is true                        Fuck you

I don’t believe in luck, I believe in fate. If a person is supposed to win, they will win. If a thing is supposed to happen, it will happen. If it was meant to be, it will happen easy.

And here I am again, realizing the movie on TV is about siblings and legacy. So much for accidental streaming. Sometimes ghosts come through via paid subscription.

I didn’t realize I was not considered a valuable person until I found myself without an income.

And here, again, is another stupid movie about inheritance.

There is always at least one sibling who wants to take the money and run. There is always, usually just, one who wants to keep a thing because it was an important thing to the person who died.

I know which sibling I am. I have nightmares about it.

What is funny, in a not funny way, is the legacy I will leave my children (should I die today) will make the monetary leavings of my parents- look small.

Here I am, with .44 cents in my purse, $5 in my savings account and a pissy fucking attitude and I will be leaving behind three times as much money as my parents did and a house worth ten times what they bought theirs for.

But I can’t touch my value. It’s not a life insurance policy I can cancel. It’s not a cache of funds I can cash in.

But they can. If I’m gone.

I am, literally, worth more dead than alive.

And don’t I fucking know it.

To quote my dad, “Here you go, hon. Buy yourself something nice.”

I sound bitter.

I don’t feel bitter.

I sound angry.

I’m not angry.

I sound sad, like I’m feeling sorry for myself, like I’ve given up.

I’m not any of those.

I’m just an Iowa idiot, missing my parents, watching shit TV about a pair of bitter, angry siblings, arguing over the legacy their parents left them.

As fate would have it.