Hoist the Black Sail

The day started out bright and sunny, with a surprisingly bright blue sky for early October, making the many tall brightly yellow sunflowers look very festive and cheerful, and a bit odd, with the musty scent of fallen leaves and wet grass and trees. It was Saturday morning, a day for chores and preparations for autumn and later winter. Ordering firewood, skimming the leaves off the pool and putting on the new cover that was delivered just two days ago to replace the old one that had been patched up one too many times and no longer kept out the dirt and rains. Cleaning out the fallen leaves and debris from the gutters,cleaning out the chimney, trimming the fallen sunflowers, putting away the rest of the lawn and deck chairs and tables. Inside the house, there was the need to take out the window fans, wash them and put them away, get out Halloween decorations for the house and windows and front door, and the usual chores of vacuuming and washing the dog and the bedding, and making beef stew for dinner. I looked around my small, cozy house that always reminds me of an overstuffed,friendly curio shop, and I felt like a proud captain of a small but very secure pirate ship, my pirate ship, that I had secured at great cost. I had no black flag hoisted to my rooftop, but as a black sheep, I sure had managed to survive and thrive in a secure location, now an outlaw from my own family. It felt strangely good this morning, strangely rebellious, and free, a somewhat privileged child from a very comfortable upper middle class family thriving in a working class neighbourhood, isolated but free from interfering relatives and preconceived notions and assumptions about status and happiness and place and purpose. I was free, finally, to be me, to the best of my ability, to write, to create my small tapestries, to run my small household with my steady and resourceful husband and clever son. We were a small island, a small group of pirates, living by our own laws, and as lonesome and unnerving as that sometimes was, I could honestly say this morning that I was happy and found my husband and son to be happy, too. There was no denying that being an outlaw , so to speak, is not without its hardships of judgment and isolation. But once that ship of freedom is on the open seas, so to speak, the feel of the wind and adventure in our hair, the satisfaction of writing your own laws, setting your own course, as awkward and unsavory even at times it may require to be, is thrilling and so well worth the painful break from the prison of compliance. I did not comply, I did not break, and now I am free, to live life on my own terms. I am a rebel at heart and rebels have to fight for their freedom as did I. It made me an outcast, but I don't care, who wants to be part of a group of relatives that judge you by money, as my mother did ? She was ashamed of my small house and my neighbourhood, and made sure no relatives ever made it here to see her disgrace. It makes me laugh now, but there was a time it hurt and made me sad. No more, I am happy to notice, inner freedom is a beautiful thing. I do not like to be controlled, and told what to do, what to think, and breaking free was scary, for sure, but if I walked away with just the clothes on my back, and lost all family loot, I gained a treasure in experience and insight, and those things cannot be bought. As hard as it was to say " fuck you" to everything that had kept me bound and afraid, the pleasure of the freedom it secured me was priceless. The pursuit of happiness sure was well worth the perilous journey. Because for me, security and happiness without freedom are just illusions. Arr!

Erasable

Soft lines play shadow puppets along the sun's light
As I breathe slowly, rhythmically, a dancer on grass and stone.

You are nowhere to be seen, as I smile and dress my tears
In rainbow colours and crystal sparks, so cleverly, so quietly.

Pencil to paper, life draws me cautiously, leaving scratch marks
On the page.

My eyes wait patiently, windows looking out to the path where
My feet will walk free. Perhaps by then, two or three will walk

With me. Until then, I will remain erasable, no matter how steadily
I redraw the lines where I can keep a steady step, one, two, one, two.

Soft lines, soft smiles, shadow puppets in the sun's warm day
I write, one step ahead of the eraser's grasp, a poem full of resolve

And quiet rage.

Trudi Ralston.
October 2nd, 2014.

Electric

Flying high past the grey skies, I go high up into the blue beyond,
the winds blowing in my hair and eyes.
I laugh as I fall upwards like an electric guitar sparkling and wild.

I sing loud with fingers and toes spread out imitating an eagle's roar
and pass above the buildings and trees below.
Nothing is stopping me now, it does not matter where I am going,

Or even where I have been, I have wings to keep me going,
don't call me, I am out of here, my high pitch screams
a song of freedom and soul repair.

Watch me, watch me falling upwards like a bullet in the sky
I am free, dancing high up here with the birds and clouds
and thunder, all is light and air around me.

Come up here with me, leave your fear behind, hold my hand
feel it tremble with the thrill of abandon as we laugh and cry,
soaring, soaring, free, strong, a burst of electricity here way up high. 


Trudi Ralston.
September 27th, 2014.

Bavarde

Voyons un peu, arrete-toi de parler , personne t'ecoute,
comme tu es bavarde.

Je suis heureuse, laisse-moi te raconter cette histoire tellement
amusante, comme j'ai rigolee, je te dis, on a passe un bon moment.

Mais vraiement, arrete de parler, tu m'embete avec tous ces mots,
personne t'ecoute, comme tu es bavarde.

Je me sentais si triste apres ce que lui est passee, ou elle trouvera
son courage, je ne sais pais, j'ai pleure de frustration, je n'en pouvais pas.

Tu parles encore, ca va pas non, arrete avec tous tes mots, tu me donnes
mal a la tete, personne t'ecoute, comme tu es bavarde.

La nuit, je fais des voyages, ou je retrouve des amis et des etrangers
qui m'ecoutent, qui me parlent, et je me reveille plein de joie et d'energie.

Quand je dors, tout le monde me parle, dans les villes et les villages,
on se rit, on danse, on se parle, et personne me dit que je suis
trop bavarde.

Trudi Ralston.
September 27th, 2014.

Roper Blues

Chemistry is a strange and fascinating thing. It affects attraction between people, or repulsion between them; cooking recipes and how they turn out cannot escape the importance of chemistry; chaos in its primal beginnings owes a continuing debt to chemistry. Humour too, seems a matter of chemistry. When I was in my twenties, a hilarious sitcom was a way to distract from the stresses of being a foreign student at TCU, it was called "Three's Company". A spin off was started in 1979, called "The Ropers", starring Norman Fell and Audra Lindley as the notoriously unhappy Mr. and Mrs. Roper, the landlords to the apartment complex were Jack ( John Ritter), Chrissy ( Suzanne Somers) and Janet ( Joyce Dewitt) shared an apartment in "Three's Company". The spin off with the Ropers only lasted a year, and it also starred the outrageously funny Jeffrey Tambor. Short lived as the spin off was, and thus unsuccessful, I became captivated by the character of Helen Roper, played by Audra Lindley. She plays an energetic, enthusiastic, intelligent woman trapped in a dusty marriage to a dull and self centered man, Stanley Roper, played very effectively by Norman Fell. Their marriage was kind of sad on "Three's Company", but on their own show, "The Ropers", the funny sadness takes on a deeper melancholy, one not devoid of a palpable existential flavour, that I found and find to this day, vaguely disturbing and unnerving. I am trying to figure out why. It is probable because my parents and my in laws both had such desperately unhappy marriages, full of frustration and stupor. Mrs. Roper fights so valiantly for every scrap of hope, laughter, joy, excitement. Her husband is not a bad guy, he is just a lousy match for her, and she for him. Lousy chemistry experiment gone sour. Perhaps that is why the show quickly failed. It was too real. Comedy is fun, because it makes us forget our trouble, it makes us feel better about them at least, because we can relate to the characters and their problems. But Audra Lindley is so good at her role as the frustrated Helen Roper, that she crosses the line over to our daily reality, walks right in to our living room, and sits down. And that makes us uncomfortable. Audra Lindley was too good, and we didn't like it, because her melancholy becomes our own, and ours becomes hers, and we can't swallow it, a matter of chemistry again. I always walk away feeling slightly nauseous from watching a rerun of "The Ropers", not because I think it is awful. Quite the contrary. I feel the same melancholy when I think of Anton Chekhov and his desperately sad plays. OK, I know, the comparison between the two is perhaps sacrilegious and absurd, but remember what the French say : "On se hate de rire , de peur qu'on ne pleure", "we hurry up and laugh, afraid we might otherwise cry". Humour and sadness go hand in hand, they are twins, separated at birth, and sometimes they remain uneasily co-joined, and we squirm with unease as we have to decide whether to laugh or cry at their predicament. I was sad to learn that Audra Lindley died of leukemia, a tragic end to a woman who was so full of determined laughter and energy. Here's to you, Mrs. Roper. Thanks for the sour mixed in with the sweet of the cocktails of laughs you left for us to sample and try.

Spider Silk

Tenuous bridges across shaky breaths and fingers
as the daylight fades into the shadow play of night.

I run into a spiderweb my eyes failed to see and struggle
to free my hair from its sticky threads, impressed with
her handiwork's effectiveness and strength.

I think of how with patience and cautious use of time
our friendship too, though invisible at first,
like a spider's silk, can grow strong to cling to fiber and heart.

Distance, and suspicion fading in the pattern of the sturdy web,
our connection grows slowly stronger, more rhythmic and sings
a muted but audible song, not unlike the excited moth nearing
the spider's home.

Resistance trembling as it flies into the spider's silk, my feet
walk towards the moment where you and I will meet,
afraid no more of the stranger to each other we might still be.

Spider silk will guide us, silently, patiently, onto that web
so beautiful that will bind us to its spell where a look, a smile
like a drumbeat will let us know the void has been traversed from two to one.


Trudi Ralston.
September 24th, 2014.
Friendship is a dance of chance, will, and in some cases, destiny.

Si par hazard

Si par hazard, sur ton chemin accelere
tu croises mes pas dans le sable et l'eau,
dis - moi bonjour avant de continuer ton voyage
sur cette terre.

Si par hazard, mon telephone sonne et j'entends ta voix
repose- toi un peu dans ma presence, raconte- moi un peu
de tes histoires et leurs circonstances, malheurs et joies,
fais- moi rire un peu.

Si par hazard, entre avions et horaires, tu as le temps
pour un cafe longue distance avec moi, n'hesite pas,
copain fidel dans le ciel electronique de nos correspondences,
au moins ta voix serait physique, concrete.

Si par hazard, tu as envie de chanter une chanson ensemble,
et oublier le chaos de la vie de tous les jours, telephone-moi,
peut-etre on sifflera quand on ne se rappelle plus les mots
d'un air populaire, " ce n'est rien, tu sais bien, le temps passe,
ce n'est rien", Julien Clerc nous aidera avec notre malaise.

Donc, si par hazard, sur le chemin des rencontres plus rares,
tu as le temps de stationner un peu ton sejour, appelle-moi et on pourrait
se rappeler la musique et les mots de notre amitie passee et futur. 

Trudi Ralston.
September 23rd, 2014.
pour un ami fidel, pour D.O.