Past Lovers
Who do you think we were before this life? Were you the woman and I the man? Was your skin peanut butter pigmented and mines milky? Was your hair still the color of fire? Did our children share your eyes? Did I have to wait for you to return from a great war? Did you come back? When did our eyes first meet? Will I ever even ask you all this? Or is this crush an optical illusion? A figment of my min? A secret I should keep? do you even like me?
The Search For the Answers to Life’s Biggest Questions
Isn't most of life a matter of perspective? For example, for some a good, firm spanking is a reasonable punishment for bad behavior. For others a good, firm spanking is a reasonable reward and the perfect way to end a Saturday night.
Do grizzly bears see camping tents the way we see the plastic wrapper on a microwavable burrito? Oh sure they can be a bit of a pain to open, but the warm, high calorie yumminess on the inside is worth the trouble. Although there is one small drawback. No one ever includes a packet of Tapatio sauce inside the package to add a little spiciness to the overall eating experience.
Has anyone actually seen someone buy one of the 5 pound fruitcake bricks sold at Costco during the holidays? I've always imagined that after the holidays they get shipped by the ton to small developing countries to be used as hurricane proof building materials.
Why don't funeral homes offer funny t shirts as a clothing option for the deceased? For example:
-Wanna See My Stiffy?
-Yesterday Was The Last Day Of The Rest Of My Life
-AHHHHH WHO DECOMPOSED? Somebody Light A Fucking Match!
I've Been To The Mortuary, Was Embalmed, And All I Got Was This Lousy Fucking T Shirt
-I Left My Entire Fortune To My Favorite High Priced Prostitute
-My Last Wish Is That During Cremation, Blue Oyster Cult's, "I'm Burning For You" Gets Played In The Background For Mood Music.
Travel Tip: The only music stations you get on the highway to hell play nonstop country music and at the end of every off ramp is a Walmart, Taco Bell, and your in-law's house.
Why do they call it Social Media when it makes me want to fake my own death, move to a small hut in the forest, and disappear from society in favor of making friends with woodland creatures?
Those who claim to be Christians...Have they READ their instruction manual? Because from what I've seen they collectively missed all those chapters on loving their neighbors, not judging, and giving to those in need.
Should I keep what I'd do for a Klondike Bar to myself because I think it could result in criminal prosecution?
Is it just me or are the most incapable, stupid, completely devoid of common sense, and most given to fucking things up for everyone people the most fertile?
Shifting
I went for a walk today. It was a pleasant ND 49 degrees. Just like today I can always tell when Fall is around the corner. Maybe it's something passed down through the mist ages of my ancestors who relied upon the Equinoxes and Solstices. The breeze blows a certain way or my skin feels the temp at just the right moment. It's like a woman's fingertips touching my soul.
Swelter
Clarence scoped the Ohio landscape. The sun was rich and luxurious over his chest as he tossed his blue broadcloth button down over an outcrop of rock.
Cluster, like any town, for miles, was as flat as an empty palm. It had vestiges amid those fruited plains where trees perched instead of corn, and deer could hide. Half a dozen acre parcels in these parts that were an oasis for wild life, even the human kind. Day or night.
When they'd been teenagers, he'd been one to sneak over, evenings, with a girl like Rhonda or Jacqueline. He slid his hands in reverse into his back jeans patch pockets and arched into the sunset.
Good times.
Ssnapk!
His carnal remembrances of chortling brunettes shut by the crack of a stiff twig. Clarence twisted his head sharply to the left. He was a free man now, but guilty conscience still had him on the run. Unsettled business.
It was a woman. Young.
She was three yards off and hadn't seen him. He smiled at her lack of caution. No natural instinct. Funny he hadn't heard her approaching sooner. He furrowed his smooth tanned brow. She'd been crying. Blonde, petite, and a stormy kind of carriage.
His kind of weather.
He liked them kind of bovine. Passionate and dumb. She stumbled forward, eyes downcast, heading towards the edge where he now reclined, back against a slim sweet gum. The heel of his right boot digging into the delicate trunk.
"Well, hullo there."
She started a bit. Eyes forest green. She did the involuntary lip lick, taking him in and he stifled a smirk, making a show of glancing at his wristwatch. He could have her panties off in three moves, he thought to himself, with the right words. Could make a sport of it. See how long it would take.
He could hear her breathing in the unnatural silence cutting through the woods.
Suddenly, he recognized her. The colored feature section, the business column, community service, portrait shot; the Cell Tower mogul with his arm charmingly around the shoulders of his daughter.
Play his cards right, with reserve, and she could be useful for several fronts. A ticket back into civilization, as it were.
The wind changed direction. Clouds rolling in offering reprieve.
He ran his tongue through his cheek, trying to cover his delight.
"You from round here?"
All At Once
The rain started coming down in sheets. I'm worried when you read that, you'll think: "Oh, it started raining." No. One second it was dry and overcast, and the next second my dress was drenched.
I was listening to music on my iPod, and then suddenly I was running.
What is music, if not something we run with - towards something, away from something?
2014 tasted a lot like steam, the kind that rises from the ground, in the second before it all comes crashing down.
Someone once said you go broke suddenly, and then all at once. Or maybe that's when you're drunk. It's simple: the way the heat changes ever so slightly; lift a finger, and you can taste the rain coming.
You can literally taste the weather changing, and later in California, I learned that the sun can burn you to a crisp, but nothing like New England thunderstorms exist.
I didn't have an umbrella. I was about ten blocks from my house. I dodged under trees, under bushes. To no avail. It was like God himself was suddenly as self-aware as I was.
My friend has a tattoo that says, "This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time." That's from Fight Club. Lift a finger and you can taste the truth of it.
I wanted more. I wanted California, I wanted a new life. But in memories like this thunderstorm, I miss the randomness of New England. How the whole world, and your place in it, could literally change in a single second.
How my old life was literally ending in single seconds.
But was I ready for change? Or just a new dress, a dry place to hang my turbulent past?
I moved to California and now my memories of New England, in a single second, can suddenly illuminate, like when you see the strike of lightning and wait the many seconds to hear the clap of thunder coming.
Redcheeks
I came into this world two days late, mad as hell. My parents were nine years too far into their marriage. My mom was two years from an overdose attempt and my father, five years from a decade-long disappearance.
My grandfather-- who would later assume my dad's role-- had the quirk of nicknaming all the babies born into the family. Sometimes it took a while, as he needed time to reflect on looks, personality, and memorable moments. Then he would christen them with whatever he found fitting. But mine came in an instant. As I screeched in my mother's arms, wailing in protest, nostalgic for the void, her father pulled me into his age-spotted arms and I settled, growing silent in his embrace.
I like to think that my soul recognized his, that there was some part of me that carried an innate knowing of the traits we shared. But that's a story for another chapter. If you're the skeptical type, then it's a tall tale for another time. My Papa looked at me, and I looked at him, face still flushed with the remnants of my tantrum. On that Tuesday afternoon in the late Southern spring, my nickname chose itself.
Screaming Redcheeks.
Papa was the only one who called me this, and usually shortened it to Redcheeks, rarely calling me by my given name. There was even a paint stick with SCREAMING REDCHEEKS scrawled onto it with a fat-tipped Sharpie, kept atop the china cabinet for the days in which I lived up to my namesake. My tantrums became expected, routine even. I was set off by nearly everything, even trivial matters like the dog not listening or an especially tricky level of a computer game. I was (still am) argumentative and questioned the validity and authority of everyone and everything.
With my history, I find it strange that others describe me as calm or stoic. I was noted as being a polite, intelligent, and motivated child, though that sentiment decreased dramatically in my teens. Anytime I'm complimented on my nature, a montage of screaming fits, unfeeling language, and brazen manipulation flashes through my mind. I think of the year I smashed all the Christmas ornaments during a tantrum, or the time I threw a dining room chair at my mother. I see my children's worried faces and my patterns repeated within them. Then plays a vision of my marriage on the rocks, with my husband wavering on the cliffside, peering into the depths of Irreconcilable Differences.
My temperament breathes in dualities. There's a consistent ebb and flow, tempestuous currents of mood and mentality. There is understanding betrothed to denial. Warm embraces are frozen in a duel with cold calculation. Within hope lives hopelessness. In the absence of mania, comes depression.
I am Screaming Redcheeks. I am Marissa Wolfe.
Somewhere, within the gray of black-white polarities, there have been touches of silver that slow the pendulum just enough to offer glimpses of what healthy, happy, and hopeful looks like. Just enough to strive for. Just enough to snap the paint stick and depart from the path of rage. Anger is birthed from sadness. Sadness is birthed from pain. Pain roots itself, unyielding, into the grooves of the brain and chokes out the chambers of the heart.
And yet, it has been my greatest teacher. My greatest motivator.
The flame-soaked phoenix wails to the heavens, wondering why she's been forsaken, but within her scattered ashes is the chance to start anew. She reforms, entrenched in her cycles, and cries a different song, more knowing than the one before.
Love is Doing
Love is a dance of actions, found in the tender touch that comforts, the silent support that reassures, and the steadfast presence through life's storms. It's the gentle sacrifices made without words, the quiet promises woven into each day, and the choice to understand and grow together. Love is the melody of patient listening, the poetry of thoughtful gestures, and the ever-present warmth that lingers in every shared moment. It's the courage to be open and the strength to hold on.
Love is a verb, and in its doing, we find its deepest meaning.