Upside Down Kris

  Out of the Gray The world goes by gray or forest green. Sometimes there are whitish squiggles leading somewhere into the fog, or big blobs of blackened green as trees. The land is landish and the fog is flat, forming an indistinct horizon. The scene outside the train would have been food for impressionists. It gives the feeling of being suspended, of sky searching for land and land searching for itself. I am glad to be behind glass, feeling protected from the drabness. As long as the florescent lights of the train illuminate a little too much, the blue of the seats stays shocking, and the red line shows the way to the exit, I am safe. Gray is for people outside the train, not me. I am where there is bright. I will not fall into the smoke. I am aware this is a selfish view of my position, but maybe it's also self preservation. I don't want to be pulled in a direction I don't want to go. The train is flying past the gray and I paid to be on it. I worked to be on it. And n...

  Park Perfection A pigeon crosses my path of vision as I follow its reflections in the park as well as my own. I am a backdrop for the light as it filters through the swirls of the white chair. I am sitting on cold, painted metal, but that doesn't lessen its charms in the October light. I am Chinese shadows representing a hooded figure with coffee. Am I the one in the seat or in the shadows? Which one represents me more? Maybe I like what I see in the shadows. Broadening my view, there are many fountains spraying out of thin poles.They could be grand parasols or delicate masts mounted with a cream colored sail. Some in the shade are tied around the waist so they can't set sail, but they still leave their mark in the autumn air, saluting it. Beyond the park of poles majestic trees form a magnificent back drop for this fall scene. They are a delicious medley of greens muted with reddish or yellow tones.My favorite is the tree with his leaves mimicking the weeping Willow. Maybe ...

Silence's Charms The Silence of the day slips into me. She is not overt with her intentions...she just creeps up out of the waiting concrete and the clocks that are cloaking their clicking. I am ready for it-whatever she may bring. The truth is Silence has no plans: she's just hanging out. It's not like she is lurking in the darkness, ready to strike. She simply stays and adds to infinity.  She is not to fear. It is our walking into silence that we fear, of not waking from it somehow. However, she's just sitting on her comfortable cushion in no hurry at all, just content to be . She would be surprised to learn that so many of us are threatened by her. I lose my outlines in her, putting her on like a cloak. I wear her because I like her smell: that still scent that warms the air. I love her voice which says all the more in its echo. If I really listen to her, she is streaked with knowing. She also has blips of the day, maybe in the vibrations of moving ...

  Love and Messiness Love, along with the wonderful gush that often accompanies it, also means dealing with a lot of crap. One's own crap, a loved one's crap...we all have our idiosyncrasies: things we are not willing to go without or give up, things we have trouble letting go, things we wish were better, things we have trouble expressing... All this gets muddled into the crap we deal out and have to deal with. Maybe there are different levels of crappiness depending on how much of the crap is mucked, sticking to our pores and clogging us up. So, what do we do with the crap? My best answer is to b e patient when it calls for it and take a stand when the level of crappiness becomes too thick.  Remember, we all are dealing with our own mess.  If we realize that it's our personal crappiness that's making others miserable, I think we have to own it at some point and try to clean it up. Crabbiness and crappiness often go together. The most important thing is to forgive th...

  Taking a Breather Last night the world stopped breathing. Maybe it would be more accurate to say that it took a breather. It took a breather from the sounds of the evening–no dogs reprimanding their owners, no pigeons fluttering, no cars screeching their need for fuel or to be let out of garages, no shouts or squeals from the neighborhood kids, no guy gruffly conversing on his phone, no steps up the stairs leading to slamming doors. Nothing. How strange the scarcity of sound was. The air felt the full weight of silence. We felt it, too, clinging to us like the humidity of the day.  "Listen...it's like all sounds have stopped..." I announced, hoping the release of the sense of suspension would soften the silence somehow.  But how can one soften silence? Sometimes it seems to hang around all the more if you pay attention to it. The silence was tangible even as I spoke and then was sucked into it.  My love and I listened for a while, which really only lasted a nanosec...

Ode to Red Ah, the redness of red: scarlet overtones and undertones outlining its boldness. Red is so intriguing, so sanguine, so Bordeaux or wine of Judas.  It's the telltale ring of a glass after dinner on the tablecloth or the ring around the mouth from strawberries. Even the fakeness of phosphorescent gummy bears pertains to red, or the brick tone of my words. It could also be the slap left smarting on skin–or should the mark be pink? It is definitely the blood blushing of a scar after a drinking indulgence...maybe even the puffiness of the face after too much sun or heat. So, too, it's the smell and glow of heat. Why not the burners of the stove signaling readiness? Red is my dress for swing night, the one that makes me feel like a femme fatale. Red are my cheeks after a lewd comment, or sometimes a compliment. Red are the leaves of the maple in autumn, or the carmine yarn of  my hat in winter. Red is the color that helps me remember, that paints my memories with emotion,...

Dealing Your Cards Every morning we cut our own deck of cards. Some days we cut the deck evenly, laying both the good and bad fortunes on each side to be shuffled. Sometimes we overlook the positive half, and still other times the negative half. In the end, we believe that we never know how the cards will be dealt. We could have a surprising hand in which something happens that we would never have expected. Other times, the hand is exactly what we had anticipated. Some people face the same exact hand everyday, and come to know that it will always be that way. Or, will it? How much say do we have in its shuffling or distribution? Could we stack the cards from the very beginning so the day is more likely to go in one direction or another?  The brain expert Jim Kwik says we do. He's sure that we can put our stamp on the day by creating good habits in the morning. (Like not looking at our phone for the first hour, journaling, and writing about how we want to be and feel for the day. So...