got in the time machine this afternoon and travelled back to my youth...music long hair and bell bottom jeans...bibbed overhauls and tube tops...r.c.cola and moon pies...dusty roads and converse high tops...racing moonbeams and soft dreams of what the future would bring...i was a wide eyed wonder...ready to do art and life two fisted and roaring...but then...it began to break...the weight of the other part of my life...the darker sadder parts...but i still kept at it...splatters of paint on all my clothing...and years stacking up high til they toppled over on me and crushed my dreams...
but i am a child from the south...and i nearly forgot that...up here in new england it is a different planet...they forget some of us aint from here...we do it differently...with food and hugs and the shirt off our backs...we dont go stoic...we turn to steel...we cant shut up...we speak our mind...we do it all loud and proud...we sob at funerals and at weddings...we dont hold it in or hold it down...we are not a pretty bunch but we do clean up nice...we know honey talk and slow dancing on steamy summer nights...we can call owls from the woods and stand with deer at sunset...we can look you in the eye and tell you the truth...and you always know you have a loyal friend and someone who has got your back...
i forgot that...i forgot it for years...never fitting in...never letting myself be myself...but now these are new times...
as i listened to the songs of my teenage years i had to smile and remember who i was...the pocket knife and the headband...the bare feet in red clay mud...the bottle collecting returned for three cents a piece...the turntable and the stack of albums...the red light on the stereo...the daydreams that wandered into night...the park trails and camping...the girls who acted like boys and the boys who wanted to be girls...the moon rising up over rolling hills...the katydids and the whip-poor-wills...the promises i made to myself but didnt keep ...
and so the music got me back there and all the way to here again...and here i am...a middle aged teenager with her real life ready to begin after years of false starts...
i said out loud again today i want a fresh start...it isnt even that exactly...i want to pick up where i fell apart...where i gave up...gave in...gave over to everyone elses needs...and i am...going back...gathering up the parts of myself i let go of...and all the crap i carried along with me...well i am going southern on that trash...pile it up and grab the lighter fluid...that is how you get rid of things southern style!
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