For the past 13 years I lived in a pleasant renovated chicken coop, next to my landlord’s farm house, with gorgeous waterfalls within walking distance. Ed and his wife Helen allowed me to plant four different flower beds: one circled my home exhibiting Daises, yellow and orange Calendula, white Moon flowers, multi-colored Snapdragons, A sweet William (dianthus:), Forget-Me-Nots, Cone flowers, purple Spiderwort, pink Cleomes, and many colors of Impatiens. Also, light green Solomon’s seal, Lily of the Valleys, orange Touch-Me-Nots and Tiger lilies. A single orange Poppy. Opps, I almost forgot the window box of fanciful-faced Pansies.

A second flowerbed welcomed us home at the entrance of the circular driveway that joined our homes:  Tulips, Crocuses, Forgetmenots, Impatiens and several pots of Petunias made me smile. Also, I planted an Azalea bush and Oriental lily. Marigolds accentuating.

The third flowerbed evolved as a rock garden where flagstones provided a walkway along Daisies, a crowd of Day lilies, Phlox, Corn flowers, May Apples and wild Geraniums all taken from roadsides in the wild. The invading Goldenrod I did not allow to take over. Sunflowers grew for a few years when the ants didn’t eat them.

The fourth flower area was shaded by a large maple tree grove at the rear of my home, where I planted more and more myrtle each year I lived there, now a blanket of dainty blue beauty each spring and fall. Adding a few wild white trillium to nature’s design. Of course I weeded often, even around Ed’s home.

When I moved out in March I could not take my snow buried plant containers, nor my moped. When the weather warmed I went back for my few things left behind. I had left on a friendly note despite being evicted because I would not pay the raise in rent due to the continuing freezing pipes and drafts through the walls.

I enjoy planting and caring for flowers so in early May, I felt the need to embellish my new apartment with a few of the flowers that I had planted at Ed’s.  They were prolific and would not be missed. So I dug up a few Forget-Me-Nots, Daises, and Calendula. As I was putting them in the back of my moped, Ed drove in, immediately flying off the handle: “Are you taking my flowers? They are not your property!”  (None did he buy.)

I calmly reply: “They are prolific and won’t be missed.”

“I don’t care!” he shouts back.

“I’m even willing to come back and help weed your gardens which I did some today.”

” I don’t care!” spit flying out his truck window.

“You don’t need to yell at me,” I say, wanting him to hear of my generosity.

“This is not your property: get out!!”

“I thought we were friendly,” my voice full of sincerity.

“I don’t care!” his red face seeming threatening.

Off I rode with ‘my’ few flowers cradled inside my moped while wondering where “flying off the handle” originated. I learned from googling that it comes from the pioneer days, when hatchets were easily loosened with aggressive use so that the flying ax would make others have to duck unexpectedly. Times when neighbors shared their produce.

I have lived in a renovated chicken coop for the last 13 years, enjoying the open light of the hill overlooking Treman State Park across the road where many waterfalls delight me….as well as an easy walk to a gorge of waterfalls down the far side of the farm field behind my rental. Another perk is that the landlord allowed me to plant flowers surrounding the coop where I lived as a chick with no roosters except for 2004-2005 when my then boyfriend Steve lived with me.

When I moved this past March there had been no roosters for a decade; except for  some short-lived boyfriends not lived with, I’ve been content to live alone. But not content to have pipes freezing every winter or wall drafts pushing up my electric bills. I encouraged Ed to have a free energy audit and pushed for some adequate insulation which finally happened last fall. Still, the pipes froze once this past winter. So, when he decided to raise the rent in January 2015, I said  “no.” Not until this energy issue is adequately attended to.

I was surprised when he handed me an eviction notice in February. I called his lawyer to see if this was possible. At first I was not so happy about it. Within the next 24 hours my feelings changed and I searched for a another apartment in the country. I wanted a pond badly. The first apartment I looked at I liked despite no pond, and being that we were experiencing the coldest February on record, it was fine for the move then, and the landlady and realtor actually proposed a five month lease without me saying I’d like to find my dreamed of place …a more frequent awareness of the Design Of the Universe  (DOU) giving me what I need.

Moving is usually not fun, yet I mostly enjoyed going through things I had not seen in my mother’s filing cabinet since she died in 2002, as well as other’s loving cards and letters and forgotten photos. I sold my kitchen table and chairs, had older caned chairs fixed, sold or gave away half of my books, and gave two book cases away to my daughter and granddaughter along with mom’s filing cabinet. A futon, mattress, and living room rug went to the Salvation Army. I felt light and lighter. Some clothes disappeared as well as sending my stepdaughter Sara, her school report cards and baby cup and bowl. I delighted in these giveaways.

One of my best moments, other than reading some loving cards from the past…was cleaning out the box under my bathroom sink. I found a fresh white box with perfume in it from a past boyfriend, Bill who had asked me to marry him. We are still good friends a decade later. The perfume is called TRUE LOVE! I felt elated and over come with joy by this one single find, as it connected and confirmed my publishing of the third book of my trilogy called, TEARS ARE TRUE LOVE …waiting to be known, in 2013. I will tell Ed thank you for evicting me!

After writing more than 300 readers writes topics (and never been published), I still enjoy the adventure that springs back memories I have not thought of for decades. Like how my dear daddy instructed me to write down every cent I spent while in college.

I didn’t feel burdened by this as I knew money was tight as could be while raising three children, a one paycheck family. While in nursing school, I did indulge in mint chocolate chip ice cream cones even in the dead of winter, at least once a week, from what my chums and I named  “Dirty Harry’s,” because his hands were always charcoal gray rubbed off from the newspapers he stacked high which made it very difficult to squeeze by the next customer.

One day, while eating the second to last bite of my sugar cone, in my dorm room which is only a block from Harry’s slim store, my tooth sounds a hard crunch, as if I’d hit metal. I look inside the cone, and smile as I retrieve a penny, feeling how lucky I am to have enough babysitting money to afford the luxury of MINTy ice cream cones.

II

It’s a bitter cold  February 2015 when I walk into the Cobbler’s Village to have an extra hole punched into the straps of my ballroom shoes; a higher end shoe store. While the salesgirl readily takes on my request, I walk past the high priced shoes to find and peruse the shoes on sale…more likely to fit the price range suited to my budget.

When I walk back to the counter to fetch my newly-holed shoes, a pair of black shiny open-toed heels painted with red polka dots catch my eye. Before I can catch myself, I am asking, “How much are those, and do you have them in size 8?” They are $89 dollars and on sale with 20% off. I tell her that I don’t need anymore shoes and add, “I’ll think about it,” with an off-handed-laugh.

The next day, I have an unexpected extra hour break due to a client cancellation. While doing some errands I find myself driving to the shoe store, guffawing, as I ask to try on those unforgotten-red-polka-dotted shoes, and of course they fit perfectly, and I must meander through my guilt in order to pull out my Discover credit card. As I am paying, I tell the same salesgirl, “You know, half my wardrobe is from Trader K’s, the second hand shop. Like this jacket I have on and my up-to-my-knee winter boots.”

She asks, “How much did you pay for your (dark rich purple down) jacket?” “I think I paid $28 for it, and it probably cost $100 new.” She nods in agreement. (You can tell it is a high-end brand.)

I walk out of the store with my new shoes, and with a little bit less old guilt.

I didn’t have any until I was fifteen, just buds, as my granddaughter calls them, and even then they barely bloomed in my bathing suit. I was embarrassed to be the only one to be seen in an undershirt in the high school girls locker room. My mother would say, ‘You don’t need a bra;’ Dah…but my broken heart did.

Finally, I resorted to sneaking into Rothchild’s lingerie department after school one day to buy a bra that I would stuff kleenex into…extending this ritual even  into college. Weren’t padded bras available in the 60s?

Still, I married as a virgin at 22, to a man who planted 2 beautiful daughters in me. After six years of marriage he came out as gay…I wonder if me looking less feminine with tiny boobs made me more attractive to him; we had what I would call a ‘normal’ sex life.

And, nursing my daughters was one of the most exquisite loving experiences of my life, and not because my breasts bloomed into 34B or larger due to breast milk.

My second husband boosted my ego by saying he likes smaller breasts, and as an avid runner I finally had an advantage over the voluptuous women who drew men’s eyes to their chests. Presently, sometimes, I wear a bustier to lift my 34B breast implants when I dress up for argentine tango, or other dances, although most days I am braless.

My teenaged-daughters asked me why I would have surgery to augment my breasts to which I reply that I do accept my body, while being an evolving psychotherapist. Yet, I want to look good, especially ‘feminine’ in my bathing suit. That was 1991, 24 years ago, and I have no problems with my implants, and in fact enjoy delectable orgasms by touching my nipples.  I made sure my pleasure continued to be twofold!

In 2013, my best friend Gayle, underwent a double mastectomy due to cancer. Before undergoing reconstruction with implants, she asks to touch mine to see how ‘real’ they feel. I can’t help but be a little bit proud of both of us; how deeply we touch each other with tears and laughter erasing past shame.

I’d like to think that I’ve grown and healed enough to accept my body as it was before the augmentation, like my oldest daughter has. She wears her small breasts proudly as she dances classy burlesque with her five-women Whiskey Tango Sideshow, where she performs for audiences periodically when she is off duty as an RN OR nurse. I am a nurse too as was my religious mother who would not allow me to dance, (let alone show my breasts.)

After seeing the movie The Imitation Game, I was inspired to write the following.

He left his German home, a small village named Dreis, at seventeen, not knowing any English when he landed in America. It was during the rise of Hitler as Germany’s leader.

He was one of seven children of a poor Catholic farming family. The only one to oppose Hitler; his three brothers died as soldiers in WWII.

My dad only knew an aunt and uncle when he arrived in America hoping for an education in medicine, but their relationship did not bode well. Soon, he was off on his own, learning English by taking menial jobs such as an elevator operator, saying “Going up, going down, please.” Eventually he entered school at Cooper Union in New York City, became a United States Citizen, and then as an intelligence officer, was off to war to fight Hitler’s tyranny, against his birth family’s country.

I am continually in awe of my daddy’s courage, his sacrifice, his love for truth and liberty, which always sparks my childhood memory of our American family. Dad and mom took us three children to the annual Cornell’s Schelkoph field fire works, preceded by several marching bands playing in various formations, then marching down the path in front of the huge stadium where everyone stood up as the flag passed by.

My dad being a mild-mannered man surprised me by tapping the man’s shoulder who stood in front of us, saying:

“Please remove your hat, in respect of the flag.”

For the freedom I, and most of us take for granted. Which connects me to another memory of my mother, who served in WWII as a registered nurse. (My parents met on the ship returning home from the war, my dad being mom’s patient.)

As an adult, while looking at her photographs taken while serving in the war, I asked her, “Why did you choose to be in the war with bombs going off around you?”

With tears glazing her eyes, mom replies, “Someone had to take care of those men.”

Just this holiday week, I cried while watching The Imitation Game, sobbed really, while hearing the woman, once fiancée to Alan Turing, (the man who broke the Enigma code of the Nazis, which led the Allies to win the war against Germany), say:

“You cannot leave, you are the man who saved millions of lives, who persevered against tremendous odds, (he was homosexual which was then against the law) who gave so much more than anyone can imagine,” or something close to that.

My dad was that kind of man, who adopted me when my mother wanted to put me up for adoption, me being a child of rape. Who loved me abundantly as he did his two biological children who were born after me. I am meant to be here, so I am not leaving my very greatfull-for-freedom-ringing-homeland until I “Di,” (die) the endearment my daddy called me.

Since I turned 60, I frequently think of the door to death and say to myself that I am ready and will accept it as it comes, yet I still wish to live many more years to enjoy the many synchronicitys that enter my life more and more frequently as I grow older and hopefully wiser.

The week before 2014 thanksgiving, I called Credo, the phone company I have been with for 16 years because they give millions to 40 non-profits each year.  My cell phone worked just fine, but most of my family and friends owned smart phones, and I knew my latest contract ended in November when I could get a free one.

Yes, it’s true, a new $450 iphone5c was on its way, and I knew from previous years that phones arrived within 2-3 days. So, when my phone did not arrive after 5 days, I called Credo, and they informed me that my phone had been delivered by UPS to my front door 3 days earlier. I live in a renovated chicken coop next to the farmhouse where my landlord lives at the same address, along with another apartment on his second floor. So, sometimes my packages go to these other doors. I walk to the “front” door of my place, as I always enter a side door that seems like a front door from the driveway. No package. Then, to Ed and Rosemary’s door. No package.

Disappointed, I call Credo again, who suggests I file an insurance claim, but I say I need the tracking number and then called UPS that evening. I tell my story again, and they verify indeed, that the package went to my “front” door. Serendipitously, a flash of one more door that packages had never been delivered to appeared…the actual front door of the farmhouse. With flashlight in hand, while still on the phone with the UPS man who had put me on hold to research something, I walk outside to that dark porch and there it was…yes…MY phone. When the UPS man’s voice came back to me, I excitedly exclaim, “I found my phone!”

Silence, as if he didn’t believe what he was hearing.

Immediately, I think to myself how wonderful that memory pops in just at the right time: the day before thanksgiving, the day before I gather with 15 other family members who can help me learn to use my smart phone that I am not so smart about. On thanksgiving day, how thankfull I feel as I enter my niece’s home where I see and feel faces of love adooring me.

I am in Nepal where a sign reads:

N = never

E = end

P = peace

A = and

L = love

the grandest of all desires which I understand will not be satisfied in my lifetime. Why am I in Nepal?  I tell myself I need to assuage my appetite for love in the larger world of nature.

Being American and 68, I signed up for a weeks trek in the Annapurna section of the Himalayan mountains, hoping to beset my fear of “can I do this?” My spirit pulls me forward, upward, downward, for 6-7 hours per day, a bit less than 20 pounds carried on my back; small Nepalese porters carrying our tents, sleeping bags, down jackets and food gear, 60 pounds plus. I am incredulous of their strength.

Unconsciously, my trip just happened to include October 6th, the date of my daddy’s death in 1977. Though an adopted daughter, he’s the one who loved me as if I was his own DNA. He treasured nature’s beauty, passed on to me.

Dad was German, gained American citizenship, fought against Hitler in the US Army. But I digress and suppress when I needed to say ‘I love you’ to him, I can’t. We can’t. Fear stood in our way like a locked glass door only seen through. Love was verbally expressed only in our frequent cards and letters during nursing school and my early marriage. And, as a child, with chocolates in heart-shaped boxes on Valentine’s Day.

I feel him in the mountains (tears) and in the moon of Nepal. In a closer look into the eye of an elephant and in the fierce face of a one-horned rhino in Chitwan National Park. And, into the familiar eyes of 6 Germans met at this same park, October 6th, anniversary of his death, with whom I share meals for 2 days, 4 of us riding on an elephant.

I’ve trekked with 8 Aussies, strangers initially, and connected especially with Helena. We are the only ones who hug goodbye when their group leaves me, the only American. I think to my self, ‘I love you’ but the words do not form, like an ocean breaker never reaching the shore.

When I arrive home, my kitty, Radiance, cannot stay away from me, crying for petting which my tired body cannot refuse. I have been away for 2 weeks and I understand he needs reassurance that ‘I love you.’ Although he is an outdoor cat, and is usually independent, he sleeps next to my neck the first night, and continues to be on my lap as much as possible the second day, nudging my hand to stroke him. If only I could have touched my dear dad this way.

I feel daddy’s spirit converging with me by saying ‘I love you’ to my children everyday as they grew up…and listening for ‘I love yous’ in return now that they have birthed me grandchildren. This appetite I doubt will ever cease.

FIRST LOVE

First thought is of my daddy, who chose to love me when I am not his biologically and he loved me equally well to my two sibs who are his naturally.

Second thought is my first husband, also actually my first boyfriend of any substance.

Third thought is my first child, daughter Erin, so perfectly loving from hairless head to the tip of her toes with nails so delicate they gently bend.

Fourth thought is Gregory, my first soul mate, even though being my fourth husband.

Fifth thought is this years birthday, first hug spontaneously given, long and firm as a boa constrictor with only the intent to love: by my first granddaughter, Denali, now 21.  After I served brunch to 9 family members and my first true best friend, Gayle, Denali came up to me in the kitchen, wrapped her arms solidly around my body with the spirit of my daddy come back from the dead; he couldn’t, and I wouldn’t, allow affection, due to our fears.

Today is my birthday, the 30th, (day of august that is), and I am at the International Primal Convention, at the mornings women’s circle, where authenticity of feelings is first place. I am wearing the dress that my second daughter, Megan, bought me for my birthday, after I tried it on at Mama Goose’s, a second hand store for children (new to have a small rack for women) where I am buying clothes for my youngest granddaughters Riley and Emily. The dress is white with huge, and I mean HUGe red cherries on it, the size of grapefruits. I tell others when they compliment my dress, ‘I am the cherry on top’, today!

When I speak to these 16 women, I tell them how greatfull I am for our primal family where I can be truly vulnerable, feeling safely accepted for expressions of my feelings: whether anger, fear or sadness. Although my own two daughters, now 43 and 40, are accepting of my tears; they are not ready to freely share theirs…as does Karuna, being 42, who dances with me at the Friday night Cabaret, a spontaneous, never rehearsed, dance to the song: The Best of my Love by the Emotions. I tell Karuna that she can be my third daughter. She agrees.

Lastly, I say, “I love you all, and most of all I love myself.”

I am stunned that those words flew out of my mouth! I have never said ‘most of all I love myself!’ Inwardly or outwardly.

In the center of the women’s circle, there is a table where we place a significant item that belongs to each of us. I had placed my divorced-fourth-husband wedding ring there. It is too beautifull to be hidden in a drawer. Many years after divorcing, I also wear my first and second husband’s wedding rings…I can’t find the third-husband wedding band.

Maybe fifteen minutes into my drive home, I notice that my left ring finger is bare. The diamond and rainbow stones are missing. I refuse to return. I have birthday plans back home. I tell myself I don’t need to be attached to things as I, for the first time love myself in the most free way known up to this 68th birthday. I sense the ring will come back to me.

Found, like me, telling others, “I am married to mySELF,” when someone sees the assumed wedding ring on my left hand and asks, “Are you married?”

Found, like the love of mySELF as a baby (love lost while growing up) being profoundly returned on this birthday.

After 3 hours of driving, I am near home when I come upon a HUGe turtle cracked open in the middle of the road. I am dismayed and park my car on the side of the road. I must remove the turtle before it is smashed again. I gently touch it’s neck with my finger, and am surprised that its mouth opens, that it is still alive, even as its intestines are exposed on the pavement.

Across the road is a man on his mower. I borrow his shovel. When I push this magnificent creature, he snaps at me. I say out loud, “You don’t deserve to be hurt like this, so I am giving you some dignity in your death.” As he lays in the grass, tears pour down my face like they do now. I say “I am so sorry! May you know that someone loves you as you rest in peace.” It is what I would have liked to have said to my father, my daddy, when he was alive.

Addendum: I was about ten years old when my daddy stopped our car on Judd Falls Road in Ithaca, NY to safely usher a turtle across the road. (tears)