Don't go back to sleep

The breezes at dawn have secrets to tell you.

Don't go back to sleep.

Jalaluddin Rumi

"I wake up with the sun, bright and new.  I listen to the sun,

and the early morning dew. Dew doesn't make any noise."

-- Carey's Brother, Spotswood (1991)

It's Monday but she tastes as sweet as Friday.  Because it's very early still, and the new work week has not spilled onto her first child. I wish morning lasted longer. I treasure the solitude. I relish these dim hours before aurora awakens. I savor it like the coffee I will make soon.

I love her gentle touch. Her music. Her early birds are like last night's stars, only sparkling with sound.  Babies crying for breakfast, fathers shouting their addresses to one another, mamas already busy tidying the twiggy nest.  The birds own dawn the way the frogs used to own evening.

They are a whistling, chirping mixed chorus.  Some rattle like snakes. Others mock the click-click-click of industrial sprinklers.  If the evening ends with a lullaby, the day begins with nature's noisy rap.

I awoke early today, before five because I was still revved up on yesterday afternoon's designer coffee. For awhile, I share the house only with its inanimate inhabitants-- clock ticks, the rumble of the heater, the creaking of stairs.  By the time I reach the bottom of the stairs though, the two toms have begun their begging ritual. This one chants for kibble, that one to be outdoors.

The kitchen door slides open to my backyard stadium of rowdy winged visitors. The whiny tabby tiptoes slowly on the damp concrete, protecting the fragile silence with his fuzzy slippers.  I slip behind him, walk barefoot, and quickly, across the chilly patio stones toward the dog's gate. 

The two collies are ready to romp but stiff from sleep. They yawn and stretch before emerging to the grassy yard for hugs from the human.  The baby female's softness invites my touch, and the older male is jealous of my imbalanced display of affection.  He slides between my legs and I scratch his hairy hips while he marches.

A potted palm hulas in the tender breeze. Its fronds tickle the air, gently, like a lover's light fingers across the silky skin of morning. Lazy. Erratic. Erotic.  A short swipe. A longer wave, then resting again in the sleepy stillness. The whole neighborhood effuses dreaminess.

Slowly, the sun begins to powder the neighborhood in pastels--hazy grays, hinted blues, delicate pinks, pale corals.  The cool crispness remembers childhood camping trips.  I sniff for the smell of frying bacon and wonder as I return to the kitchen if anyone eats pork anymore… and if Glade has test-marketed a camping scent.  The sprinklers interrupt my silly digressions with a morning hiss.

Inside again, I initiate my ceremonial coffee grinding, and the rich nutty fragrance infuses the room.  Mr. Coffee turns magic bean dust and filtered water into a dark energizing elixir.  I pour my first cuppa and click on the tiny counter-top television… then just as instinctively scold myself for sinning against the Universe by rejecting the rest of the morning's sweet gifts. Endless infomercials and stock reports save me from the mindless machine that steals so much inner life.  I quickly turn it off. 

The churning "ommmm" of the frig restores a meditative mood, and I notice the percussive clicks of my leathery sandals on the wooden floor, observe the gliding and tapping of my ink pen on paper, and ponder this acute sensual alertness. It is nice that life lets us do the day's dessert first.

I wonder about this voice of my homonculus which speaks so poetically before life's cocky schedules demand attention. And just as I pose the question, I hear the first street sound, a car rushing to an early appointment.

Next, a noisy prop engine in the sky.  And in mere moments, more cars.  And the sound of rushing water upstairs. Too soon, I must share the leftovers called "the day" with others.

Now it feels like Monday.

Time to unload the dishwasher. To put away yesterday's sundries. To plant the last petunias.  To return the weekend's rented videos before noon or pay $3.98 each per day.  To walk on the treadmill and ride the stationary bike and burn 275 calories.  To empty the coffee into the thirsty thermos.  Glug glug glug, it echoes.  


Time to dismantle the pineapple's spiky armor, to remove the banana's rubbery suit, to manipulate the slippery mango, to slice the orange, and to bite into the brashness of day.

Time for the noise of appointments and meetings and decisions and errands and production and schedules and perhaps even a few playful romps.  


I enjoy work, and I love to play, but I long to protract the peaceful joy of morning into the cluttered din of the day.  To carry her calmly into the bright afternoon.    To hear music in the clattery copy machine and dishwasher.  To sense stillness in the traffic jam.  To cherish the technicolor day and make morning a metaphor.

When you arise in the morning, give thanks for the morning light, for your life and strength. Give thanks for your food, and the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies with yourself.--Tecumseh, Shawnee Chief

“Listen to the Exhortation of the Dawn!
Look to this Day!
For it is Life, the very Life of Life.
In its brief course lie all the
Verities and Realities of your Existence.
The Bliss of Growth,
The Glory of Action,
The Splendor of Beauty;
For Yesterday is but a Dream,
And To-morrow is only a Vision;
But To-day well lived makes
Every Yesterday a Dream of Happiness,
And every Tomorrow a Vision of Hope.
Look well therefore to this Day!
Such is the Salutation of the Dawn!”
Kalidasa, widely regarded 
as the greatest Sanskrit poet/dramatist

Who's yo Big Daddy?

These Georgia peaches, unreluctant stars 

of Bravo's "The Real Housewives of Atlanta," don't do windows.

I have a humbling confession--my guilty pleasure: I am addicted to the BRAVO "watch what happens" television network. To its early morning West Wing re-runs. To the infomercials. To its relentless reality competitions, er, artistically-astute design shows.

Surely it cannot be the programming content, e.g. hair styling tournaments and tours of the dating lives of bratty Manhattan preppies.  Something about BRAVO's audio or video production mesmerizes, destroys my will to watch the news, or read a book, or take a walk, or make a bed.  

BRAVO is like a department store that pulls you in with the scent of cinnamon or hot buttery popcorn or invisible pheramone air spray, then leads you by the credit card to sparkly glass cosmetic counters, and forces you to buy this season's pink lipstick which is just like last season's pink lipstick except in a sexier case and bearing a new and improved promise of ecstasy and eternity.

Television exerts similar subliminal power over us consumers. Sometimes when channel surfing, my remote controller will halt suddenly at an odd channel stop,  where I am spellbound by an exotic soap opera with not-often-tall, but very dark, and very, very handsome actors next to very buxom and very often over-dressed actresses, speaking Spanish on my American television.

With such inexplicable magnetism--and English--BRAVO hooks me into its endless spread of Top Chef leftovers. And six seasons of hand-me-down Project Runways. And irresistible repeats of hysterical Flipping Outs and horny Work Outs. And soon with the tantrums of bony babydoll stylist Zoe. (If I'm trapped by television, why cant it be the other Rachel--sardonic, brilliant Maddow on MSNBC-news?)

I have a jones for BRAVO.

I spend (waste) excessive hours in reality purgatory, watching "housewives" of New Jersey, New York, Orange County never do laundry, never do the dishes, never vacuum and dust their penthouses or gated community mansions.

Recently I'm transfixed by a goup of fluffed-up, prissy Atlanta belles, who cuss and slap at each other like ding-dong bee-aa-uches. ("Bitch" is a three syllable word in the South.)

"The Real Housewives of Atlanta" is a tacky, trailer park trainwreck that I cannot keep my embarrassed voyeur eyes off.

Most of the onscreen shenanigans seem scripted, but an occasional character is genuinely Shakespearean. Enter Kim Zolciak, the platinum-wigged villainess from season one who "almost" had cancer and who can almost "almost sing" and has a newly released country single ...and who is "kept" by a mysterious and married man she calls "Big Poppa."

GO HERE TO: Watch what happens

BRAVO's Andy Cohen, real housewife Kim Zolciak, and Flipping Out's Jeff Lewis

The big question of season one was Big Poppa's identity--who was this reportedly "short" benefactor with the fat wallet funding kuh'razee Kim's big hair and her Cakebread and Bentley lifestyle?

Call me kuh'razee, but Burl Ives sprang to mind.

I know. He's dead.

But who else could handle a her'iccane like Kim? Only Burl was worthy of a fine, powerful Southern woman with a fine, powerful Southern wig (soon to become a fine, powerful Southern wig "line.")

Remember him in the steamy Hollywood telling of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof?  Click this to  experience Burl Ives!

No, Paul Newman couldn't handle catty Liz Taylor. But Big Daddy--Burl Ives-- could handle Paul and Liz. And Burl would be Ken enough to handle a Barbie like Kim. If she started spoutin' ef this and ef that and ef you, Burl would grab her wig in one fat hand, with bourbon in his other fat hand, and a big fat cigar stuck between his big fat lips, and roar somethin' powerful and paternal like Big Daddy:

"...with your loud voice and your old busybody buttin' in here, there and everywhere, sashayin' around here, and makin' a big noise like a boss, but I'm the only boss around here...ain't nothin' wrong with me but a spastic colon, made spastic by all the lies and liars I've had to put up with around here!" 

Burl Ives didn't care about Jimmy's cracked corns. And Burl Ives wouldn't care what any of ya'll think about anything.

Burl Ives was The Mother of Big Daddies.

He could eat Big Poppa's chicken fried lunch.

RIP soon, Michael Jackson

 Today to celebrate The First Day of the Rest of my Life, I launch  this official blog--The Muse Salon.  It's overdue.  I have spent more than a decade online, practicing my typing.  I want to "save" some of the billions and billions of words I've written, to memorialize so much mental meandering.   (mmm...chocolate. :)~

Now I will blog--write something less ephemeral than clever, vaporous instant messages to Facebook friends...and nasty "FU"s to those preposterous, bold strangers on AIM who want me to imagine their misspelled genitals.

In this premiere post, I focus on royalty, specifically on the recent reported death of the King of Pop.  I have not seen Michael Jackson's corpse, but I do not believe that he is faking it to promote the new tour.  

So last night I futilely attempted to post a curt, relevant remark about him on Twitter. A naughty little rumor that yours truly invented.  But the inundated site had collapsed under the weight of global mourning.  Michael's death diverted attention even from a horny wayward southern governor's Argentine hiking trip  and a possibly apocryphal Iranian Revolution.

I am relieved my comment didn't go public.  The attempted tweet was decidedly tacky on first glance and would have required too much explanation to deflect animosity.  So I bravely launch it today on my virtually virginal, unfollowed blog, without controversy and likely void of any comment.

Here goes:

 "I heard a rumor that Michael Jackson, babysitting some young boys, choked to death on a ham sandwich while sitting on the toilet."

Ah, c'mon.

We boomers misremember how Elvis died of constipation. And I easily memorized Newsweek Magazine's succinct and inaccurate obit to Mama Cass Elliott, "gargantuan canary, choked to death on a ham sandwich."   

My testy attempted tweet was just an abbreviated homage to our home-overgrown hedonism and addictions to sex, drugs,  mega-celebrity, and ham sandwiches.

Michael, God bless him, is gone. And Life already goes on.

North Korea wants to desimate Hawaii next month.  The price of summer vacation gasoline climbs daily.  California still cannot pay her bills.  And something may be happening in Iran.

Let's let Michael rest in peace....soon please.

DeNeice

P.S.

Here is the critically-applauded music video of Michael's purported favorite song "Childhood," a tribute to the man's life and art.  Beautiful, biographical, tragic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVJscGa5vbc