Thank You, Shebar

It means so much to me to be back on this site, to have back this added dimension to my writing life; I thank Shebar so much, the keeper of my site who struggled with me to regain this space. Perhaps it is narcissism, perhaps it is the flood of expression that marks these times, but I felt a deep loss when I lost this canvas. Here is the Todd River flowing for the first time in so many decades, flowing out of the central desert lands here through Alice Springs, that fabled and troubled town, here it is a highway of a different sort, dream time and historical time, people struggling to live in both times at once. The river is also pictured on my first blog, and I want these passages of words to flow in both directions, back to the old site and here and always to you.

The Nestles, 1943, On a Park Bench in the Bronx

As the world swirls around me, and my body struggles to hold its ground, this image of Regina, Elliot and me came back into my hands. I had given the original to the Lesbian Herstory Archives, along with the rest of my papers; Saskia, one of our long standing coordinators, and a wonder with images, sent me this copy. Because I see this site and the original "Don't You Ever Stop Talking," as my last hold on time and space, I now send this black and white image of three people who formed what I came to know as family. My mother, Regina, dressed in her work clothes, centered, with her dependents, her children around her, my brother, who died this year, holding what seems to be a candy pipe, and myself, on stocky legs, looking out at the world, warning it not to come too close.

It is my mother's gloved hand, resting on my shoulder, that moves back through the years, the primal touch, on my three-year old shoulder, the weight of it, the sense of responsibility, the journey ahead that would eat into the vestiges of respectability. All I see on my screen now are the legs, the shoes, stockings, socks of the three Nestles, the scruffy shoes of my brother with is stripped socks, my mother's work shoes, too tight, but fashionable in a Bronx way, with the flower flourish and the toes peeping out, and then my white solid little girl shoes tightly laced, my legs that ache so much now. The strength made frail by the human journey into time, my one little moment of it, I the only remaining voice for now, who remembers the streets beneath these souls.

When These Words Go......

I thank Pattie for giving me back this tablet, this canvas, where I can touch the world. Where I can see you, in all the shifting places that we have met, the port of Haifa, the base of a gray wall, the wide expanse of Broadway, the cruising river-side walks of big cities, the night time  small rooms with a circle of light and a book, always the pages of other worlds. Here is Pattie, studying her Italian as we prepare for our weekly session with the la lingua bella. She is patient and demanding, enabling so many women to have access to this wonder of keys and words and hearts touching. When my words go, they will go to you--in my books and in this place.