Upside Down Kris

Souvenir It is oh so luxurious to the touch, oh so enticing to the eyes. The suaveness of it, the mauve melding with the fuchsianess of it entrances me even now. There is only one time I remember wearing it, yet I still love it today. I love the feeling as I run my fingers over it, the connection to the totally foreign world from which it comes. Let me go back to the beginning, to the occasion I bought it for and maybe the only time I have and will wear it. We were in China, specifically in Daqing, the oil capital of the country. This was the most eye-opening, significant trip I've ever taken. The juxtaposition of things that boggled my mind (like the oil museum) with the incredible culture (like the Forbidden city in Beijing) still fascinates me.  We were in a very modern mall, trying to get the final details for my good friend's wedding. She had decided to have the wedding she had always wanted back in her homeland, and the dress code was pretty specific. (No bare shoulders o...

The Year of the Snake It's my year:  the Year of the Snake in the Chinese zodiac. The cycle of twelve years goes back to my birth year and cycles even further back to 2,000 years ago. The snake years are special, representing years of transformation.  The snake keeps slithering up to me or past me. The other night we went out to a Chinese restaurant and since we had already been there twice, they expressed their gratitude by giving us a calendar. The calendar has a snake curling at the top, representing its dominance over all the other symbols at the moment. In Western society the snake has such a bad rap...after all, he was the one that convinced Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, which basically damned humanity until judgement day (according to Catholicism.) He is thought of as deceptive at best, evil at worst. But in China there was/is this fascination with snakes–their colorful beauty showing in shining scales and mysterious movements. It makes sense, then, that indivi...

Just Fake It Fake it 'till you make it. This catchy phrase has been roaming around my mind a lot lately, trying to find a place to sit. Backwards it would be something like "making it fake". That strikes me as odd, as does the combination of fake and make in general. Anything "fake" is normally considered cheap, a knock off of the original, like handbags sold on the street. It brings to mind something not made well, not real...a copy of the real deal. We also say that someone who is not genuine or true to themselves is fake. But here the world is, telling us that if you want success, the secret is to fake it first. For example, I saw a video where Lady Gaga said she faked being an agent at the beginning of her career to get some gigs! And books like The Secret say that you have to visualize what you want before it comes to you. Is "faking it" such a bad thing in those cases? To have confidence, to go after something, and believe so much that even if y...

Chocolate Coated Life "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get." True wisdom from Forest Gump. Truly true in many ways. Sometimes a bon bon melts in your mouth, the soft heart spreading and coating the roof. Yet another has a sour liquor in the middle that makes you pucker. Still another has a caramel center that sticks to your palate and lingers there for a long time. There are times, however, that you just don't feel like comping on chocolate. Or you get a kind that doesn't tickle your fancy and you don't even want to it. Still other times the box is so shaken that the description doesn’t go with the truffle. You become confused and have no idea which one to choose. Suddenly, the box that you were so sure of makes no sense anymore. Then there are those bitter ones–those bitter pieces of life that are so hard to swallow. Divorces, operations, someone with a debilitating sickness in the family...it makes you ask why: why was I de...

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...