01/17/2025
To the NOW 64 year old WHO 1. convinced me the Tooth Bunny existed until age 10 when I discovered irrefutable evidence --my distinct broken fall-out in among the sandwich bagged others; 2, WHO was Buttons the Clown and a frog-masked velvet-costumed singing telegrammer, hustling as a single mom for my single digit years; 3, WHO comes to mind whenever I see dried flowers: I remember those childhood summers spent cultivating sea lavender from lands we did not own and you selling arrangements called "everlastings from the heart," and your paying me $5 a day I took my flea market decisions quite seriously, noting, too, how popular your tables with wreaths & bunches were; I RECALL how I disliked how funky and unusual you dressed, standing out and not like anyone else in southern Maine; I RECALL how I dreaded what were never-brief outings because of how gregarious you were-- always present and inquisitive with EVERY person you encountered: grocery clerks, hitchhikers, passersby; I REMEMBER learning to nap in noisy places, including under a table at a contradrance venue, where I'm certain you danced EVERY single song; YOU love/d summer solstice outdoor parties; YOU advocated against racism in the 8Os before I'd learn what it was/is; YOU signed a speeding ticket with a signature smileface after your name--before the officer scratched that one and had you sign another; YOU wrote songs, write songs, a couple I have memorized; and, to this day-- whenever I confide re: disharmony, say w/ an over-the-phone company rep who hung up on me; or a not-nice person online or IRL-- you, in earnest, ask--You want me to talk to them?
You are such an oddity, Shelleymae: a person who has been literally and figuratively abused, trolled, and gone it alone most of your years, so much so it made me question if there could be a God.
We butt heads whenever we talk about negative past things, but when WE redirect to the NOW and acknowledge the clashes are wounded parts surfacing--most coming from circumstances and persons we couldn't control--then we see the parts that of us that are the same. Apple falling not too far.
I hope your day-before-birthday head-ground-hit was a symbolistic last stumble-fall, the last knockdown. You claim I have prophetic anointing and regardless: MOM, if you opt to never defend yourself against reputation slurs, and don't get offended or outsource energy/power to persons who see the world differently than you, if you trust your baskets of fish & loaves will never empty--that you won't again be in a land of scarcity, if you stop looking back at what was lost, you're going to have more joy-energy that'll hit people within EIGHT feet of you, light that will NOT again be dimmed by others projections and shadows, by those who know not what they're rejecting, what they do.
In this new chapter, soon with a new zip code, it'll be real hard, and painful, starting anew. but you're almost out of this cocoon season. If you don't think of what ifs-- what if money runs out, what if they think this, what if I'm misinterpreted, what if I let go to land/firm ground--if you ignore those fettering fears, if you, like Jesus, say your piece, don't censor you, and don't tarry in towns or linger with persons that feel you're asking or are too much-- if you drop the cane, crutch, and company of those whom you pour into and they just take-- you will regain the confident, bold, too-bright for many Plato Cave Dwellers who don't get abstract thinking as you do.
Up until yesterday you were Simon, the one of 12 to brave out-of-boat water-walking, who looked not often --but significant sometimes-- at the logic and nuance and circumstance in your periphery. If you only see Him now, and don't carry more than one more cloak, to maybe give away, YOU will have a buoyancy that's unearthly and exude confidence; you'll have the strength of Samson without haircuts.
Today your mourning ends.
with bigger than the sky love,
yer eldest of six, Summer June
