An afterthought

 The snow and the cold give way to warm days and cool nights, the smell of new growth filling your senses with all that is Springtime. Blades of grass peek out from the ground soon to be nipped off by lawnmowers as gloved hands work the soil preparing for an autumn harvest. The tulip bulbs you planted in almost frozen ground show signs of blooming with a variety of colors soon to be placed in Grandma’s favorite vase giving the kitchen table a much-needed look after the grays of winter days. Wearing a sweater, you sit on your porch taking in the smells and sounds of the rebirth all around you and the nearness of hot summer days. The warm cup of coffee held between your hands to be replaced with lemonade and ice cream cones for everybody. It’s a time we give thanks for getting through the worst winter has to offer, knowing we have time now to enjoy what’s been given to us in the forms of green springs, orange autumns, and sunbaked summers when the smell of burgers on the grill, backyard pools, and endless evening walks complete us. The blank white artists’ pallet stored in the attic will be retrieved and the time it lay dormant will soon explode in a rainbow of colors you see all around you. I think that maybe the harshness of winter is meant to purify our souls by freezing everything that is beautiful until we are fortunate to see it all again.

M.O.

The shadows

                                                                    The shadows:

 

Some people just have a sense of things and I believe I am one of them. I’ve always been able to see way back into my past, sometimes as young as one year old. I know that sounds crazy but nonetheless, true.  I’ve always had the ear of God, meaning I knew he was with me, guiding me past certain death on more than one occasion. I’ve felt him blow life into my lungs as I struggled to breathe and stay with me until he felt like letting go of my hand. I don’t know why I’ve been blessed with these abilities but I’m grateful and proud to have been chosen. As a teller of hundreds of stories, it never amazes me that when finished, I read it and wonder where that came from. Sure, they’re my words, my characters, and my story but somehow, I don’t feel like I should take credit for something I don’t know if I wrote, or if I was just taking notes for the true author. Like most writers we write for others to read but also to test the depths of our minds, reaching deeper than we’ve ever gone to tie everything in a nice red bow and offer it for sale. Every word holds meaning, every character comes alive and sometimes dies, and every ending could be the beginning of another chapter one. I love creating stories even if they don’t get read and just collect dust on a bookshelf in a dark and musty room. Maybe someday one of my great-grandchildren will stumble upon one of my stories and show great interest in the way the elders put words on paper seemingly done without any power source, and they will read my stories and tell their friends of their great find in a very old house in a dark and musty room, and I will come out of the shadows and listen to my words.

M.O.

Christmas now and then

      As a young child, I would lay in my bed on Christmas Eve hoping to hear sleigh bells telling me of the approaching man in red. I would have my covers pulled up under my chin, so I could close my eyes quickly and look like I was fast asleep. My parents had told me if Santa saw me with open eyes, he would go right past our house without stopping. In future years I thought that was rather cruel of them. I believe in a child’s mind; Christmas Eve was the most magical of nights. The only thing that filled your thoughts was Santa being in your house leaving you gifts you had been dreaming about for months, eating the cookies and drinking the milk you left for him, and the remains of a few carrots given to the hard-working reindeer. There were no thoughts of school or chores. No fighting with siblings or time outs for cussing. Just a quiet, warm feeling of anticipation that eventually did result in a deep and happy sleep.

     Like an electric shock, you would awaken and jump out of bed meeting your siblings at the top of the stairs as if all of you were wired the same way. Even though you wanted to skip the stairs altogether, you crept down each one until the living room with its brightly lighted tree came into view. And then, WOOSH, down the remaining steps and into a room full of dreams just waiting for you to claim as your own. You didn’t even notice mom and dad enter the room smiles on their faces as they watched you tear into the carefully wrapped boxes. Screams of joy with each gift, flashbulbs going off as dad tried to memorialize every moment for future viewing. In our house, there was always one child each year that got a gift that was extra special. I was eight I recall when it was my turn for that extra gift that we had wished for all year but were told even Santa couldn’t always bring everything we wanted. My dad told me to have a look in the front room closet and I almost knocked over the tree to get to it.

     Opening the closet door, I saw it. The gift every boy wanted that year, but few would probably get. Hiding in the darkness of the closet was a GI Joe Army tank. It was almost as big as my little sister and without knowing my dad had the remote control it came to life with a sound only too familiar to me as I had been watching commercials all year for it. It rolled out of the closet, headlights piercing the darkness, turret swiveling and the muzzle glowing red. I screamed with delight as dad handed me the remote and I took command of the best present a boy could ever hope for. Sure, the red rider bb gun and the radio flyer wagon were all cool toys, but nothing ever compared to that GI Joe tank.

     It’s sad that we as a nation have put ourselves in a situation where toys of this nature aren’t welcome in many households, that toy guns can be mistaken for real and a child banishing a red rider toy gun could never take it outside in fear of being shot with the real thing by a nervous neighbor. In my neighborhood in the late 1950s after all the presents had been opened and a hearty breakfast eaten kids by the dozens went outside with their new toy guns, knives, tanks, and submachine guns. It was a virtual army of kids choosing sides to play war. Parents took pictures and the innocence of youth was captured for generations to come. Now it’s video games that guarantee kids sitting inside for hours upon end never leaving their rooms until their bladders are about to break. No outside no fresh air no games played with toy guns or bows and rubber plunger arrows.

     I am sixty-nine years old now and my small home is decorated with colored lights and a small tree that usually comes out of storage way too early. I attempt to bake cookies from mom’s recipe box that has been with me for time unknown. I spend hours wrapping gifts for my grandkids knowing they will never know how very bad I am at wrapping. Christmas music fills my home with the classics that I remember filling the house I grew up in. On Christmas Eve alone with my memories, I lay in bed with the covers pulled up to my chin, listening for sleigh bells and remembering all that Christmas means to me.

     MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

Sea salts

  

They spoke of monsters of the seas and mermaids calling their names. They claimed to have rung more salt out of their socks than most men sailed on. I listened as each old sailor spun his yarns pausing for effect and a long draw on his clay pipe. They sat on the gangplank breathing some fresh air as the ship itself aired out the smell of vomit and stale grog. Months passed as weathered sailors kept her on the course, the winds filling her sails promising a swift crossing, but the sea has a mind of its own. Below decks, some slept while others cheated in cards and drank an occasional cup of rum laughing at the young stowaway who never kept so much as a breadcrumb down in the churning seas. They stood their watch, alone with their thoughts of going home, some to wives and children, others to the bar, and the ladies who welcomed them back. It wasn’t the life for many a man, but for those who fell in love with the sea, she was the only mistress that mattered. Down a darkened ally in every port of call sailors could be found at tattoo parlors getting inked with the name of a true sweetheart or sea creatures that came to them in a dream. Some chose the navy anchor others just Mom and a heart. You don’t choose the sea one sailor said, she chooses you. I listened to the old sailors whose time was drawing near to put down anchor and try to live life on steady ground. But that wasn’t easy for someone who spent a lifetime with sea legs and pounding salt water against their wrinkled face. Truth be told, many a sailor will tell you when his time comes wrap their body in an oil-stained cloth and dump them overboard at sunset on a calm sea. Let them join the creatures of the deep roaming the oceans of the world in peaceful harmony and a sense of brotherhood that truly defines a sailor both on land and loving sea.

M.O.mikeoconnorauthor.blogspot.com

Remembering, or not

 

                                                                Remembering, or trying to

 

Seventeen years old and finding myself on a U.S. Navy destroyer, out to see the world or parts of it. Jail or four years was the choice I was given. Seals and Croft, Carol King and others keeping me from going insane and keeping the steel hull quiet from the constant sonar beeps and heavy seas. Baby powder sprinkled on the passageway floors as we slide on folded blankets like a kid’s amusement park ride but with guns and missiles. Sidewalk cafes in Paris and Pizza in Rome. A bull fight in Spain and Christmas on Gibraltar. Places every young man should have to go even if he doesn’t remember most of it. Grass huts in Africa and a beer brewery in Sierra Leon offering warm beer to a bus load of drunken teenagers puking all the way back to the steel monster waiting at the pier. Rebuilding an orphanage and bringing in fresh water through underground pipes built by young men bettering themselves in their own minds. Finding opium dens on the back streets of Pakistan and twenty dollars’ worth of numbness and visions of the ship leaving us there. Taxis with trunks full of hashish as your mind tricks you with every step on the cobblestone streets of a place you should have died but, somehow once again making it back to the safety of the steel walls. Out to sea again as warm summer breezes comfort you in only ways the oceans can. The smells of the ports remain with you for the rest of your life, surfacing when least expected. Twenty-one years old and saying goodbye to fellow sailors who were your family within the walls of steel, your friends in times of need and faces still seen with closed eyes when you want to remember. Four years of routine broken only by your last step off the ship, looking back trying to put it behind you but never will. Twenty-one and trying to fit back in with those you left at seventeen but those times now seem so distant with no agenda but where would I work tomorrow or if Id even look. Drinking before noon, wasted by five and out cold on somebody’s couch that smelled of urine. Waking up to zeppelin and the smell of weed coming from somewhere in the house shared with runaways and people like myself who were trying to find our way that was takin from us at such an early age. Outside into a hot summer day that made you flash back to a brick street and a vendor offering mystery meat on a stick that you were high enough to eat not caring. How many more days, months even years, would it take for you to find a balance and continue your journey with a sober mind? Fifty-one years have passed since the call of the sea beckoned and I’m sober now for  only ten .I still have visions of things and still stop in my tracks when I smell a certain smell or hear a certain song that will pull me back in time when sliding down a powdered passageway on a steel destroyer in heavy seas, still putting  a smile on my boyish face.

Mike 2022

Keepsakes

 

She had kept just one box over the years. A box containing her most personal memories. It contained hand drawn pictures of tree swings, family picnics and trips to see the ocean. There were photographs of the kids looking so very young and a clay bowl that she remembers using for some cereal the day it was given to her from her youngest son. The milk leaked out a little, but messes could be cleaned up as they so often were. She held onto a piece of her mother’s hair just a small strand held together with a red ribbon, holding back tears that have never dried. Carefully she removed a small glass ballerina her husband gave to her for no reason other than he thought shed like it. She remembered that day and how she whispered in his ear that she would treasure it forever. There were souvenirs from family vacations like a snow globe from Santa’s North pole and a small baby food jar filled with sand from a trip to the beach. So many memories in such a small box but everyone bringing a smile to her face and sometimes a tear she can’t control. She put the lid on the box and put it back on the shelf knowing it wouldn’t be very long until she pulled it down again to help her remember a life well lived and always loved.

Mike 2022

Time of day

 

He sat alone in the time of day he liked the best, the time between light and dark when things quieted down, and the hidden stars began to shine. He sat in a rocking chair he had made decades ago for his wife as she so loved to rock and knit sometimes by the light of a full moon. If he closed his eyes, he could see her plain as day in the chair wearing an apron covered with fruits. She was more of a talker than he was, but he was a good listener and spoke back at the appropriate times.  He missed her that he knew for sure. He rocked and thought about all the life that once called this place home. The few head of cattle and a horse or two over the years. Some chickens and a goat named Billy.  They were all for the kids who learned how to take care of them, and love them, an education not found in school learning. The kids are all grown now with kids of their own who love to come and visit this old place with its perfect hiding places and room to run like the wind without hitting a wall. The animals are long since gone except for old Blue who by his account must be about fifteen years old now. He doesn’t do much anymore but by golly he still tries to run down a bird but mostly gives up before even getting off the porch. He had a good life here by all accounts and someday when the rocker stops rocking, he will leave this house to find his place with his only true love. But not today and maybe not tomorrow because he still has stars to look at and enjoy the quiet of his favorite time of day.

Mike 2022

The whole of ourselves

 

The whole of ourselves is made up of many different emotions. Happiness, sorrow, joy and fear. We constantly are at their mercy as they can strike at any given moment. The average person goes through a variety of said emotions trying their best to understand why. They ask themselves are they being punished for something; did they draw the short straw? Or are they just a victim of circumstance. The reality of our whole self is we aren’t experiencing anything different; we just seem to be given more than our fair share. In our lifetime if we are blessed with many years, you must put the whole of life into perspective and weigh out the troubling times with the wonderful times. I believe we were meant to experience every emotion ever known but the difficult part is when we are faced with too many in a short span. Having to may emotions thrown at you will cause an effect called mental overload. You will shut down and dismiss the emotions giving you the peace you long for. The most difficult part of a mental overload is coming out of it. The great healer known as time will help with that. Once the emotions have been slowed, new ones will begin to grow eventually taking over the ones you’ve dealt with. You will understand this if you’ve ever experienced something in your life that broke you. Once you’ve cried out that emotion it can never come back to you the same way. It diminishes to an acceptable level you can deal with. The whole of ourselves is a complex machine and one that’s constantly testing our abilities to over come them and hold our lives in check.

Mike 2022