when time reaches your heart

 rusting metal round the windowpanes...a brick-face dingy with black dust and decay...entry doors open to the rain...the roof sagging with the weight of fifty years...wishbone trees growing out of the second and third floor classrooms, like old children reaching now-tired arms toward the  threatening sky...the blocky building, like a cold shell discarded after metamorphosis...so sad, so troubling, so much like a generation lost in their own neglect, their own brokenness, their own rusting lives...

and i ponder their mascara-stained faces as i stand in the parking lot taking photos, capturing time and space within a box...and now ageless tears...before i discover they are mine, splashing from my face in the pollen-filled wind.

there is a sea in the wind, and it has washed over my face. the fields are raging, and waves of weeds blow and ebb, and i am tossed ashore, washed up against...the edge of myself.

 i tuck in my camera, away from the light, walk past the edge of the parking lot...into the arms of the present...into the arms of the possible...

i will not run away from the tears

for the world is waiting for the love inside

 

the reluctant duodenum

 there's a boatload of argument about pineapple in this world- for some it is a nasty, overly sweet tropical disaster waiting to stick between your teeth and cause your blood sugar to spike, for others it is the best friend of your delightful little duodenum, that funnel where all the food goes down on the way to AdventureLand. Pineapple contains bromelain, which is a word I often misspell or mispronounce, especially when suddenly and without warning, my mind starts thinking in French. The duodenum loves bromelain because it helps break down the Chicken Korma from that Chef Tandoori meal you ate that tasted more like the container than real curry. The duodenum adores bromelain after you gorged yourself on chips, french onion dip, and coca cola at 1 o'clock in the morning while watching Bollywood flicks. But, the duodenum absolutely jumps for joy when bromelain rushes to the scene of that kitchen nightmare heading down your long and winding road...rushing through your body on a one-way ticket to the toilet bowl...

Bromelain seems like a really good idea for those of us who like to have a clean colon. As you know, a clean colon is a happy colon. But while bromelain can be found in pineapple, eating pineapple everyday can be detrimental for those more intestinally-challenged among us. This is why a bottle of bromelain tablets from the health food/natural food/holistic food establishment can provide the bromelain our body wants...and needs...to fend off the gurgles within, and provide one's inner workings with a beneficial healing agent.

Back in the day, when papaya was cheaper here, my primary source of bromelain came from a diet rich in this wonderful fruit. But, not being in a region where it grew, my habit became a bit pricey when other people finally discovered papaya, and suddenly, people were cutting up little chunks, and sticking them in fruit salads...so, pineapple became the cheaper alternative.

Now I am not, nor have ever been, a doctor, but I have lived enough decades that I can get a senior discount from an 18 year old in the drive thru who thinks I am a "really old man." That being said, I believe you will find sage advice in combating digestive discomfort by employing the use of bromelain tablets or eating a healthy regimen of pineapple and/or papaya. I have found this beneficial in combating the gurgles and bloating associated with eating items the intestines consider foreign objects. In my travels, I have consumed many of these adventurous foods with less destruction than before my bromelain regimen. 

frail phrases on a fall day

 

walking past reflecting window panes, i don’t recognize the man in the sheep herder’s hat walking beside me. he’s graying and has a beard and could have stepped out of an 1800’s photo. he certainly does not look like he belongs here.

i turn the corner into a downtown parking lot and lose the gaunter fellow.

fall feels like winter and a pall of pelting weather fogs my glasses. the car has equally special problems, though she is, thankfully, not premenstrual- still, she fogs her windshield when i push her button.

while i am waiting for her to de-thaw, my mind wanders back to the conversation i had not twenty minutes before with an older couple from my own town who just happened to be in the same restaurant. he was telling me about her health issues, she was telling me about his home hospital rounds. between them, they co-survived her heart conditions and he learned enough to cook from the back of a box.

“i thought i recognized you,” he said, squinting.

funny, i did not recognize myself. not in the mirror this morning.

strange how frail these thin lines are, these phantom-like phrases...in the passing.

my spirit man does not feel the age, but my mind does. i have little interest in the more attractive females walking by. but the souvlaki makes my mouth water as i spread a healthy dose of feta over the spicy lamb.

they have a conversation, but not really with me. somewhere in it, i have a bit part, like a supporting actor with an aside now and then.

the feta is calling…but they aren’t leaving…

back out in the cold, i glance at the store windows. someone is soon following me. i race back to the car and start the engine. in the rearview mirror, the cars move away and i see an opening. though the day feels frail, winter will come with but a whimper. 

peppering our language with the spice of creative conversation

parsipitous....

the unabridged dictionary online is closely guarded and nearly impossible to access, like an item hidden in the basement of the Vatican. I have never found “parsipitous” in the unabridged dictionary, yet I have the word and meaning in my brain. so surely it must be in there somewhere.

unless it is just in my brain, and then we must blame Shakespeare for my wanton creativity.

“Parsipitous,” although a bit vague, refers to the act of parse/parsing an item, like a sentence. When one parses a sentence, when studying sentence structure, one identifies the parts, the grammatical components, of the sentence. As a language nerd, I remember parsing Latin sentences in both high school and college….on and on and on. In fact, the act of parsing these sentences became a bit parsipitous. Like ambition, one gushing with ambition becomes ambitious. So it is with parsing. One fixated upon parsing sentences becomes parsipitous. We could even describe such a behavoir as leaning toward the desire to parse everything.

So, like the guest at your dinner table who must keep the peas, potatoes, and chicken separate from each other, never touching, parsing the portions on the dinner plate, that individual has exhibited parsipitous behavoir. Especially, if when the dessert, say fried ice cream, comes, that the diner attempts to separate the components of the cinnamon-covered beauty on the plate.

we owe it to the future to pepper our language with the spice of creative conversation. Like Shakespeare, who invented words if the skeletal conversation did not meet his approval after composing the sentence, we can ice that cookie with a creative word, based on the principles, or rules, of conventional English. This world would be a better place if we did, and we could surely argue- with examples to the contrary- with those who have declared Western Civilization, or the English tongue, to be “in decline.”

so, if you see parsipitous behavior, be sure to point it out to the one engaging in such behavior. again, we owe it to spread the joy of enriching the soil of our collective vocabularies.

(Reference- former post- “