Upside Down Kris

Holiday Spirit Where does the spirit of Christmas lie? Is it in the aftermath, as we take in torn, jolly paper and wipe off chocolate moustaches? Is it during the Christmas doing, wrapped in the holiday grins and encircling arms of family? Or is it in the preparations, the tingling of the fingers in the crossing of a bow or the throwing of silver tinsel on the tree? Nay, my friends, nay. Christmas resides inside a globe that echos "Santa Claus is Coming to Town". I may not think of it for most of the year, but when December rolls around (or even the end of November!) it comes out of its storage box. I shake the glass dome and wind up the incorporated music box. Christmas lives in those sparkly flakes swimming around the globe–suspended memories that touch me before settling on the sphere's floor again. The song plays slowly, skipping so many beats that leaves me wondering if the globe has forgotten, yet it always tinkles out some notes. I jiggle the dome again and again, ...

The Bed Keeper The Bed Keeper looked down at me from her pillow throne. Slate gray   and serene, she observed me silently. She was sizing me up, trying to decide if I was friend or foe. In the cat kingdom as with all kingdoms, this is first and foremost.  Seeing as how I bowed below her immediately, I seem to have made a favorable impression. However, she followed me with her eyes as I executed the bed ritual: the changing of the day costume to night, the stripping off of any dayness paramount to approaching her throne yet again. When I had finished with the cleansing bathroom ritual, I returned to ask permission to ascend her throne. She gazed at me with her gold eyes but said nothing. How was I supposed to know if this was an assent or refusal? I moved toward her cautiously, inching toward the prized throne. It was true that I was there to overthrow her, although I wished it to be as pacific as possible.  She made no comment as I nudged her slightly, but she refused to ...

    Make-Up Meditation I have started to prefer my own face to the china doll look that I used to have when I was made up. In thinking about it, made-up means "invented" or not real, right? So, I was inventing my face. If you're really good at putting on make-up you can be almost anything you want...even unrecognizable... While I don't think I was ever unrecognizable in the past, I do remember having fun with creating a persona with my look when I sang at restaurants. Every week, I was someone different...an Ice Princess with shimmery white eye-shadow or Miss Moody with shades of dark blue. I could be whoever I wanted to be. Now I just kind of want to be myself. I went through "natural" phases in the past, too: particularly during Covid. I used to ask myself what the point was in making myself up. Who for? It made me realize that I was using make-up to impress everyone else or to be someone else...the "me" in me didn't care. But is being natura...