It's been five months without that man. Most days I'm happy. Today the car wouldn't start. Called
AAA. They sent a little boy who knew the basics but not much more. He got me started and I went to
an auto parts store. "It's not your battery, ma'am." Great! Could happen again-who knows. Stopped 
at Staples and bought a computer chair. Tears just came on the way home. I needed to sort through 
my feelings and out came this poem. My daughter read it and said it reminded her of Dr Seuss.

Why am I surprised,
By this sadness and tears?
I've grieved for so many,
For so many years.

I know there are good days,
I know there are bad.
So why the surprise,
That I'm feeling so sad?

I know by heart,
How grief comes and goes.
Some days you feel happy,
Right down to your toes.

Some days you don't think,
You'll be normal again.
But tomorrow will come,
And it eases the pain.

So I'll just cry,
And I'll welcome the tears.
The warm, cleansing rain,
Falling into my ears.

I'll know they're God's taxies,
To cleanse away sorrow.
And when I wake up,
It will be tomorrow.

Be careful what you wish for,
I've always heard it said.
"Don't want a relationship," I murmured,
As I took him to my bed.

Should've told him, "I'm afraid
to love and try to trust."
I didn't really know my heart,
Thought lust would be enough.

I thought there was another,
He was seeing at the start.
Decided I could handle it,
Wouldn't break my heart.

I didn't know that we would be
Together for so long.
The weeks and months turned into years,
Love for him grew strong.

Suddenly I started feeling
Anxious and alone.
Panic and depression,
The cause I thought unknown.

Til I read those words,
That in a moment, changed my life.
She said I didn't know her,
But she was his ex-wife.

He'd called her a few weeks ago,
Told her we were through.
Said that he would pick her up,
In an hour or two.

She stayed the night several times,
Shared our common bed.
Somehow she knew I was still there,
Despite what he had said.

So she wrote and sent the letter,
That cut me to the core.
That hurt my heart and ended us,
We will be no more. 

Another beauty pool adventure. It's been unseasonably cool these past few August days. The sky continues to draw my attention. I wish I could save the image of blue with lovely white clouds drifting by.

Maybe if I look long and hard enough, the sight will be burned in my consciousness; can be brought to mind when grey, lifeless winter skies bring cold and snow.

Maybe I'll hear the splashing, screaming, laughing, always the music in the background.

Maybe I'll see the trees waving in the distance.

Maybe I'll feel the sun beating down drying out my skin and the breeze tempering.

Maybe I'll remember the light, just right romance 'pool read'. (Thanks Nora!)

Maybe I'll capture the 11 year old sweetness and beauty of my grandson even when he's grown. Watch him shooting hoops from the blue water; watch his triumphant expression and fist pump when he sinks a long shot. See him do a hand-stand and come up, water streaming down his face.

Maybe I'll be there, someday when I can't be.

Maybe that will be enough.

I recently returned home from a month-long stay in Brooklyn with my son (David Lee Rotten) and his boyfriend. We had a wonderful time: went to a couple plays, movies, sightseeing, and just everyday living. I think what I enjoyed most were THE PROJECTS.

Dave and Peter are in the process of creating a lovely apartment in Peter's family home where Dave has a recording studio. Anyone familiar with city living knows that space is at a premium (cliche alert) and smart storage solutions a must.

We cleared out spaces, moved dressers and books and tables and desks and file cabinets and beds. We went through boxes and totes and closets and cupboards. We (by that I mean me) mended and shortened and otherwise made clothing wearable. We (by that I mean they) even discarded unwearable, unused items and things we just didn't need!  We put up shelving and pictures and curtains and more shelving and arranged and rearranged furniture and utensils and linens. We put up backsplash in the kitchen, painted window wells in the studio, installed a pendant light over the table, installed a door stop on the back door. (minor item but major impact)

Just knowing how much more comfortable and beautiful their living space has become makes me happy. Back in Ohio, I can picture them and their home and smile. 

PHOTO: Mama Lee Rotten aka Kathy (Johnson) Brooks and her sister Penny (Johnson) Fenton, 1956 or 57

I talk to myself and I tell me I'm fine.
I just don't listen most of the time.
I know that I know what is best for my heart.
But I can't believe that I want us apart.

I've loved you in silence,
For so many years.
All I have left of you now
Are the tears.

I said to myself,
"Don't you dare trust a man!"
Once again, I ignored me,
And now here I am.

Cleaning up the mess,
I created inside.
Trying to salvage,
What's left of my pride.

Building the walls I tore down even higher,
Cause you turned out to be a cheat and a liar.
I try and I try to teach me some sense,
Just can't be taught-my heart is too dense!

Hope springs eternal, it's hard to tamp down.
"Be careful, don't love him," I say with a frown.
So I plug my ears and don't listen to me,
I guess I'll give up and just let myself be!

On the edge of sorrow and relief.
Somewhere between tears and laughter.
I know it was the answer to my unanswered question.
"How can I leave him when I love him so much?"

It took away my options and calmed my fears.
I didn't have to walk away and 'leave him here'.
Didn't have to 'harden my heart' against the feelings.
Just have to find a way to start the healing.

I loved him and I kinda, sorta thought he loved me.
Even though I knew his past and never could he,
Be faithful to his woman, whether girlfriend or wife.
He's selfish and controlling, and he's been all his life.

So when he walked away and removed all my choices,
He effectively silenced all my inner voices.
That had clamored about, begging to be heard.
The hope for his loved seemed to them absurd.

I'm on the edge of sorrow and feeling such relief.
I'm crying and I'm laughing and dealing with the grief.
I'm happy that he left me, I'm sad he had to go.
I'm glad I didn't have to leave him,
When I love him so.

This was a country song maybe in the 90’s. It put into words what most of us already know if we love music. 

THE SONG not only evokes the memory, it takes me back to that place. Gives me back that feeling, the place, the weather, the sadness or happiness of that moment. I’m there again.

“Kathy, I’m lost, I said, though I knew she was sleeping. I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why.”

Simon and Garfunkel transport me back-I’m young and heartbroken and disillusioned and, WOW, they used my name. My most important boyfriend gave me my first S&G album and I’ve loved them ever since.

“Imagine me and you-I do-I think about you day and night, it’s only right, to think about the girl you love, and hold her tight-So Happy Together." The Turtles take me to my room, pale green with soft green and white striped curtains and sheets. My shorthand teacher suggested practicing to the radio. I loved that assignment! I must have written those words dozens of times. The only radio station I could reliably tune in had a very short playlist.

A few years later, married, pregnant and living in Key West. Hot and humid and rainy most every day. A different world from the Pennsylvania dairy farm where I grew up! Several songs can take me there. “I Wanna Make It With You” (Bread), “Fire and Rain” (James Taylor), “Spill the Wine” Eric Burden and the Animals. When I hear them, I close my eyes and I’m sitting at the old metal table I covered with bright contact paper to hide the rust. I’m smoking a cigarette and reading Ayn Rand. (yes, I was pregnant. In my defense, that was before we knew the possible consequences of that act) It’s hot and sunny-so humid! Then clouds and torrential downpours. The conch train goes by the Presidential Gate across from my downstairs apartment. Good thing it’s covered. In an hour or less, just as hot, all evidence of rain, gone.

Some years later, my sister was sick-deep depression-empty eyes. She had a record she loved and played over and over. When she died, I played that record once and never again. I was there again, the sadness, frustration, hope, fear and the culmination of sorrow and loss.

The song remembers when-through good times and bad-the soundtrack of my life.

Sunny with a beautiful sky; light to darker blue. A few fluffy clouds moving. The smell of tanning lotion, cries and laughter of the kids. Two weeks til their school begins and freedom ends. Aerosmith doesn't "wanna miss a thing." Hot with a redemptive breeze.

As I dog-paddled across the pool, a young boy chastised a young girl politely for "splashing an old lady." Offense my first response; then remembering when '30 was old' and laughing! I'm over twice as old as old and lucky. Too many don't/can't get old.

The 38 year old fighting cancer, the 34 year old lost to depression, the 19 year old driver-dead from distraction, the 20 year old murdered by a drunk on the road, the 22 year old's drug demise.

So many ways to die young and I didn't! Yay for wrinkled, vein patterned skin; yay for age spots and bad backs and bad hips and waning scalp hair and waxing facial hair (what a pun). Hard of hearing, failing eyesight. Dead will come soon enough. Yay for old and full of years!

As you've probably gathered, I am getting over a relationship. Even through all the angst and sorrow, I will never regret loving this man. He inspired things that I hadn't felt in a very long time. When I would hear his special ringtone, I was excited and nervous, a young girl again. Priceless at my age! I felt love and actual desire, physical feelings long time gone. When I called him, I had butterflies even after 6 years of seeing each other.

He never said, "I love you." I never said the same. I thought, in typical female fashion, that if I loved him, he loved me too. In the beginning, I had hoped I could just have fun and see other people. Not get serious or monogamous. But I come from a mindset and a generation that wouldn't allow me that behavior, that freedom, no matter how much I wished for it.

I had just ended a 37 year marriage due to a bad case of cheating. I met him 2 months after the dissolution (disillusion). He wanted me to go home with him-once again, that overdeveloped conscience interfered. I gave him my number and anxiously waited for his call. Heat for him overwhelming me at times. He never called. I worked and played and lived my life, always with him in it. Almost a year later, I saw him again. He said he had lost my number and he took me home that night. I'd waited a year-no more!  Thus began almost 7 years of waiting for his call, wanting to see him, happiness, sadness, love, lust, feeling once again. 

Much of what I've been writing is an attempt at self-therapy. A sorting out of my jumbled mind and feelings. It's been so therapeutic for me and I hope my musings will strike a chord with others who are hurting and healing.