Was it Fantasy?
Was it fantasy?
I was raised during a time
when we did not lock our doors,
even at night.
Was that fantasy?
I remember travelling the heavens on starry nights and talking with my counsel.
I remember feeling like I didn't belong here.
I recall very hard lessons of "Reality" early on.
And oceans of tears
flowing from wells of sensitivity.
I was fed the 60's like a bad trip
the racial struggles for equality,
and the impotent flower power of Lady Bird Johnson
planting wildflowers to cover up Lyndon's body bags.
I felt like Alice in Wonderland
Who didn't?
Does anybody really know what time it is?
I saw Jonas Salk and Neil Armstrong
and McCarthyism and the Beatles.
And nothing seemed real.
I gave birth to my own child in the 70's
who became a child of the 80's
with Duran Duran and Gothic
and repulsion of materialism.
I watched as she gave birth to our own daughter, Miriam,
now a child of the new millennium,
who watches Disney and the Wizard of Oz
and Maybury RFD.
I suspect that she, too,
travels the starry nights and drinks in her own counsel.
But if she should ever come to Grandmother Irma
and ask what is real,
I will tell her - only in our own fantasies lie our own realities.
Just as you have taught me, so I tell you.
She says despite getting fluoride in her eye,
being bitten and sneezed on by a mule,
getting rained on all day,
and having an asthma attack on the bus,
it was a really great day.
I wish I had her attitude towards life.
When I arrived in Germany last year
after a dasterdly ordeal of missed flights
and lost luggage,
and a brief interlude with a blue-eyed Austrian named Hans,
there was Miriam, my heart!
Oh, Grandmother Irma, you look a bit frazzled around the edges.
Would you like for me to get my comb
and smoothe you out a bit?
Oh, how this child has smoothed me out!
More than a bit!
The day after tomorrow, I will meet their flight in Atlanta.
Miriam will have something wonderful to say
And I will remember it always.
That's the kind of child she is.
What kind of child am I?
Are you?
If happy little bluebirds fly
beyond the rainbow
why, oh, why can't I?
like happy little bluebirds beyond
But this time will be new for me.
And when he wanders the starry heavens at night
Over the Rainbow, Into Reality!
We'll all pile on the bed and let Gus, Gus
tramp all over us while we giggle
like little girls do
and Gus will wag his tail,
(his singing chords are located there)
like little puppy dogs do,
and we will be so happy -
the rainbow
so high.
Little one-year old Ethan will come too,
for his first baptism
in the circle of life.
taking his counsel
they shall tell him
How Greatly He is LOVED!
And Troubles Will Be Far Behind Us!
