Happy New Year

Everywhere in our bright, blue, bittersweet world,
we are surrounded and blessed by angels,
kept warm by abounding love, light, and laughter…
we celebrate the New Year, we embrace the gentle season...

Everywhere in our bright, blue, bountiful world,
we share love with our brethren, kinsmen and strangers alike,
giving thanks for the amazing grace of the Universe…
celebrating the New Year, embracing the gentle season…

Everywhere in our bright, blue, beautiful world,
we love and are loved, serve and are served,
appreciate and are appreciated, pray and are kept in soft prayers…
we celebrate a bright New Year, we embrace the gentle season…

Thank you for visiting Bread and Roses. I hope that each and every one of you have a bright and beautiful...peaceful and bountiful...New Year filled by peace, joy, love, passion, laughter (and however much rabble rousing and howling at the moon you might need to keep it...and you...frisky :-).

dance in the light, y'all,
Michael K. Willis

Hey Mister...

Driving through driving rain, Christopher Ryan has no idea where he’s going. He had only the vaguest idea about where he’s been…he’s sober despite half-hearted attempts to be otherwise…not at all able to pretend that he was feeling no pain. He’s driving…running…from no place in an unfocused hurry to get someplace else. Christopher likes to run.

I won’t be here forever, someone gentle had told him, but you know where to find me when you’re ready…

Ready? Ready for what? Christopher also likes to pretend that he didn’t understand when the questions demanded more than he wanted to give and the answers made him too uncomfortable. A plaintive song comes on the radio and Christopher resists the urge to change the station…

…hey mister, that’s me up on the jukebox,
I’m the one singing the sad song,
and I cry every time you slip in one more dime
and play me singing that sad one one more time…

Christopher allows himself a rueful smile as turns the car off the highway. He parks close by a gnarled old tree but he leaves the engine running and the radio going. He sits back and stares into the cold liquid darkness.

Beth…Elizabeth…her love is so bright and welcoming that it’s terrifying. Christopher shudders, knowing himself to be a fool and a coward, and wonders how the rain got through the roof and onto his cheeks.

…southern California, that’s as blue as boy can be,
blue as the deep blue sea,
won’t you listen to me know?
I need your golden gated cities like a hole in my head,
just like a hole in my head, I’m free…

Christopher looks back at the rain-swept highway…love will let you down, he thinks…the road never will…love is too fickle…it hurts too much…better to be a coward than a victim. Christopher takes a deep breath and nods. Not again. He looks at the highway again and steals himself to disappear into the dark night, safe from heartache…safe from love. Running away was something Christopher knew how to do all too well.

…I do believe I’m headed home,
hey mister, can’t you see that I’m dry as a bone?
I think I’ll spend some time alone,
unless you’ve found a way of squeezing
water from a stone…

“Not again,” Christopher mutters aloud. He puts the car in gear and pulls back onto the liquid highway.

…let the doctor and the lawyer
do as much as they can,
let the springtime begins,
let the boy become a man…

Christopher drives hard straight and true to what he knows, his fear notwithstanding, is the safest haven he could possibly find. The porch light is on. The rain gives way to a gentle drizzle. Christopher gets out of the car and trudges up to the door. Standing in the creamy golden glow of the porch light, he knocks three times and waits.

…I have wasted too much time
just to sing you this sad song,
I have been this lonesome picker
just a little too long…

After a seeming eternity, a light goes on inside and the door opens warily. Beth, stifling a yawn and ensconced in the warmth of her favorite terrycloth robe, stands there, a wary but unsurprised at once. Then a smile softens her face. “Hey mister,” she says with a wink, “it took you long enough…” She holds her arms open.

Christopher surges into her embrace and snuggles in tightly. “I do love you,” he sighs nuzzling his damp head against her shoulder.

Beth strokes his head and smiles patiently. “Silly man,” she coos soothingly, “I always knew that. You were the one who needed convincing.” She leads him into the house and closes the door behind them.

“Hey Mister, That’s Me Up on the Jukebox”
words and music by James Taylor
©1972 Blackwood Music (BMI)

Three Questions

This morning on an NPR program entitled To the Best of Our Knowledge they explored “The Meaning of Life” (not too grand a topic to try to encapsulate in one hour of radio time :-). Part of the broadcast featured people being asked three provocative questions:

What do you live for?
What would you die for?
What would kill for?

The answers to these questions can be guilelessly simple…and incredibly complicated. We can answer with broad generalities…I live for love, I would die for my country, I would kill to stop war…or with utterly personal truths…I live to make my lover happy, I would die to save my child’s life, I would kill only in self-defense…and none of our replies would be “wrong”.

The people on the program had a wide array of responses…from nervous jokes to plain-spoken, heartfelt sincerity…and, of course, it made stop and think how I would respond.

What do I live for?
I live to love and be loved by those in the close circles of family and friendship I belong to (and to make some kind of positive impact, however small, on their lives.) I live to learn…life is, ultimately, about learning from its very beginning to its very end. I live to be as happy as I can be. I live to write because that is what I’m called to do. I live to be of positive value, however small, to those I encounter in this life.

What would I die for?
I would die to save the lives of those closest to my heart and soul (it is, if I’m being perfectly honest, not as long a list as I might intellectually hope it might be…about 12 people whom I’m relatively sure I would take a bullet for without hesitation; another dozen or so I MIGHT do so for with varying degrees of hesitation.)

Despite my mother’s objections, I was willing to go to Vietnam (and fight and possibly die) when I was younger (that war ended before I reached the age of majority) and I’d like to think that I would still be willing to die for my country and I would willing to die rather than lose the freedom my forebears endured chains of slavery for, fought for, and died for. I won’t know for sure about these until it becomes a real choice I need to make.

What would I kill for?
The glib, off the cuff answer is that I would not kill for anything…but that’s not true (however much I might want it to be.) I would not ever want to kill but, that said, I know that I would very probably kill someone trying to kill somebody I loved…and I would kill if that was the only way to stop someone from killing me.

Three simple, complicated, thought-provoking, belief-challenging questions:

What do you live for?
What would you die for?
What would kill for?

The Moment (Falling in Love)

Joshua smiled shyly, the leathery creases in his face softening into tender curves and soft crevices, and waited for the next move to be made. The old man’s courtly manner, masculine and awkward, touched Kathy in ways that she was at a loss to even try to explain in the limited universe of spoken words.

Joshua, a casually graceful bear of man...tall and burly, hirsute and stoic...was comfortable with the years that he spent on Earth. Sixty-two summers ain’t that many, he would say with quiet conviction. Coyness not being a companion of his, he meant that totally without irony. He had made more than his share of mistakes…what man who was truly living could say that he had not?…but he learned from the ones he could and made his peace with the ones he could not and lived his life as the best man he could be.

Kathy, with her unruly auburn curls and her sober green eyes, the weight of her thirty-eight years having settled in full, unapologetic womanly curves on her sun-kissed frame, was enormously charmed and the gulf of years between her age and his faded into meaninglessness without her consciously realizing it. She had been a willing fool for love more than she cared to remember…old heartaches notwithstanding, she never stopped hoping to be that fool at least one more time.

Joshua touched Kathy’s face, with shy, devastating tenderness, and the moment…and their foolish, hopeful, brave hearts…took flight. The subsequent kiss…as humidly, magically passionate at it indeed was…merely reinforced what those hearts already knew.

one year ago...

One year ago…the Indian Ocean was disturbed from its usual ebbs and flows by an earthquake and, with scant little warning, a tsunami rose and swept across far-flung shores. Not with malice. Not with forethought. Nature doesn’t have animosity or caprice, it simply is and it simply does.

A tsunami rose and swept across far-flung shores…and more than 200,000 souls fell before its awful, undeniable, humbling power, dwelling from that moment on in the arms of the welcoming universe and in the warm-lit, summer-soft realms of the memories of those who fiercely loved the departed but were blessed and cursed to be left behind here in the mortal world.

One year ago…a small eternity ago…a tsunami seized our collective heart…our collective compassion…our collective fear of mortality taken in one sudden, terrible swoop…and shuddered as the toll of the dead rose with each subsequent news report. We sent prayers…we sent money…we sent our guilty relief that it wasn’t us…we sent soldiers of compassion and planeloads of donated goods.

And then…as we do because life and human nature moves us…we began to move on. Everyday life consumed us again. Wars large and small…nature moving in devastating ways (earthquakes, hurricanes, floods) in other parts of the world…matters of real human import and matters of trivial import…drew our attention; the world rolled on and we, running as fast as we can to keep up, rolled with it.

We didn’t forget…we just stopped remembering to remember because life took us…because it made us sad…because we understood that suffering is a part of life and there’s only so much we can do about it…because it was too painful…too overwhelming…too far away…to think about for too long.

One year ago…a heartbeat ago…a tsunami rose and swept across far-flung shores…and, for a moment at least, we pause to remember…

Happy Christmas

And one angel cried…
and his tears flowed like diamonds
sparkling bright in the never-ending sky;
and his tears flowed like rain
sweeping through the generous beings
of all the gentle folk resting sure
in the arms of a blessed Christmas morn.

And one angel sang…
and her song flowed like thunder
gentle and proud on an ebon night;
and her song flowed like a symphony
echoing through to the hearts of babies
still near enough to heaven
to know that song of a sweet Christmas morn.

And one angel danced…
and his steps flowed like sunlight
on a crisp and clear winter’s daybreak;
and his dance flowed like magic
keeping warm all of the immortal souls
waltzing with the rhythm of the eternal
and the music of a wondrous Christmas morn.

And one angel cried…
and her father lifted her up…
and her mother held her tight…
and her tears ran like honey and wine,
soft and sweet and sure as the sunlight,
soft and sweet and sure as the promise of love
come true in the dawning of another Christmas morn.

Thank you for visiting Bread and Roses. I hope that you all have a very Happy Christmas and a bright and peaceful New Year filled with love, light, and laughter.

peace and joy,
Michael

Neverending Rainbow
Christmas Annex 2005

Mr. Robinson

In my neighborhood the “boogie man” had nothing on old Mr. Robinson. Well at least that was the opinion held by my friends and I (ranging in age from 9 to 12 at the time.) Mr. Robinson stayed in his quiet blue house, with the drapes drawn and the windows shut tight, only venturing out to cut the lawn or to run errands in his big black tank of a car, a 1958 Cadillac that didn’t make as much noise as you might have expected something that big to make.

Nobody knew how long Mr. Robinson had lived in the neighborhood…he had been there as long as anybody, child or adult, could remember…and indeed nobody was exactly sure how old Mr. Robinson was (his skin, the color of rich pecans, was clear and relatively smooth but his hair, always neatly trimmed, was white as downy cotton.)

His wife, a chubby golden brown woman with perpetually smiling eyes, had always seemed to have a special place in her heart for all of the boisterous (and sometimes downright annoying) kids on the block. She would sit on her porch in her rocking chair knitting contentedly as we played baseball in the street or ran screaming like merry banshees during games of hide and seek that wove in and about all of the houses on the street; she would gently chastise us if tempers flared and fights seemed to be in the offing and that would be all that was needed to defuse the situation; she would bake wonderful treats to give away on Halloween and give us little candy hearts on Valentine’s Day. Some of us kids made her Valentines on Valentine’s Day and gave her little Christmas cards on the last day of school before Christmas vacation (we always brought Christmas cards to share with classmates and some of us saved an extra one to bring to Mrs. Robinson) and she always seemed to be delighted by them.

Mrs. Robinson (and yes she knew and liked the song, though she would have replaced Joe DiMaggio with Jackie Robinson in it if she had her druthers) made her house a welcoming place for us kids. Mr. Robinson, even then, was a sullen, mysterious figure who came and went paying little attention to the kids. We often wondered how it was that two such different people got together…and stayed together.

We never knew exactly how Mrs. Robinson died. One day an ambulance came and took her away while Mr. Robinson, dark blue and green suspenders (not sure why I remember that so vividly) holding up his brown trousers, watched from his porch. My mother and Lloyd West’s mother went over and spoke with him briefly; he nodded and he offered them a grateful little smile (none of us had seen Mr. Robinson smile before and we never would again) before disappearing back into his house.

From that day forward the kids in the neighborhood learned that the Robinson house was no longer a welcoming place. If by chance a ballgame or a round of hide-and-seek accidentally found its way into his yard, Mr. Robinson would explode through his door bellowing “you little hoodlums stay offa my grass!” and we would scatter. Our parents told us to respect Mr. Robinson’s wishes and, for the most part, we did.

On the last day of school before Christmas vacation I saved a Christmas card even though Mrs. Robinson had been gone for months by then. I signed it and put it in my jacket pocket. Walking home from school, after my friends had gone into their houses to change out of their school clothes, I paused in front of Mr. Robinson’s house. I thought about Mrs. Robinson and I smiled. I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out the little card and, my heart in my throat, I walked up the walkway to the front door. I was just about to put the card on the porch next to the door when the door swung open and Mr. Robinson, his face as stern as ever, loomed over me.

“What’ve you got there?” he said gruffly. I couldn’t find any words so I just held out the card. With an annoyed sigh he took the little envelope from my hand and opened it. He read the card and then looked at me, his face softening just a bit. “Thank you,” he said. “My Abby kept alla these things you little hoodlums gave her. Couldn’t understand why.”

“You’re welcome,” I said in a small voice, backing away from the door and down the porch stairs.

“Hey boy,” he called out to me as I got to the sidewalk. I turned and looked up at him. “Tell your little hoodlum friends to keep offa my grass,” he said but he winked and almost, but not quite, smiled as he said it.

“Merry Christmas, Mr. Robinson,” I said as I crossed the street and headed towards my house.

Mr. Robinson still yelled at us when we happened onto his lawn but I never took it quite as seriously again.

Christmas Annex 2005

For the second year I've set up a temporary blog for my fan fiction Xmas tales (including ones featuring the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation and a certain Man of Steel).

"Christmas Annex 2005" can be found by clicking here.

Happy Christmas, y'all :-)

Angel's Flight (a Christmas interlude)

Soft is this winter’s night…cold and bracing, crisp and sparkling…and soft just the same. Christmas Eves are ever just that way.

And she, bright of spirit and fair of face, loves to soar through the night in those magical hours before Christmas dawn…loves to dance with the joyful music, in many tongues and many guises, that colors and warms the late December air.

And she, loved and loving, loves to take a brief respite from the heavens and come down to Earth, where the prayers and dreams and sleepy giggles of the children are as clear to her as thunder…as clear to her as tender whispers. She loves to slip the bonds of welcome duty and devotion and come down to Earth, reveling in the sweet magic of the sweetest and most magical of nights.

On the night of nights, an angel takes a brief break and, with her enigmatic eyes and boundless heart, savors the promises of peace and love, sugarplums and lingering hugs, of the Yuletide eve. And she loves it more than mere mortal words could properly express.

And she, fleet of foot and strong of heart, pauses high above the heart of a great city and lets her powerful eyes go softly opaque as she takes in the tableau of the Christmas Eve night: children murmuring conspiratorially in their beds, quite unable to sleep; mothers and fathers planning Christmas dinners and gamely trying to decipher arcane instructions for constructing toys; last minute shoppers rushing and cursing their last minute foolishness; lovers enjoying quiet fires and warm brandy; faithful souls gathering in the houses of the Lord for communion and succor.

She sees it all…hears it all…feels it all down to the core of her very soul…and it all makes her smile.

On the night of nights, an angel gives wing to her imagination and to her heart and she soars from one corner of the world to the next and back again. And in the night she embraces the spirit and power of Christmas and lets it wash through her being as it will.

And then, as the dawn begins to peek over the far horizon, she sighs contentedly and takes wing for the heavens that are her home…takes wing for the heart of the universe that is her home and ours as well.

Soft is the winter’s morning…warm and golden, bright and bracing…so very soft. Christmas morns are ever that way.

And she, bright of spirit and fair of face, slips the bonds of dreamtime and smiles warmly and waits patiently. And in time the beautiful woman, her mother, comes in to collect her.

“How is my angel, this beautiful Christmas morning?” her mother coos in a voice warm as sunshine and sweet as honey, “How’s my beautiful Supergirl?”

And she, the baby girl with enigmatic eyes and a boundless heart, smiles her secret smile and gurgles happily allowing a dream of flying through the Christmas night to brighten her heart in ways that she as yet has no mortal words for. And the morning is full of love and the promise of a boundless, peaceful future. Christmas Days are ever like that

- for Shelby Elise (Papa’s Girl) -

******
On an entirely different note, the infamous (well, at least amongst family and friends :-) Star Trek fan fiction Xmas tale I wrote years ago is, if you're interested in that sort of silliness, posted here.

Waltzing into Christmas

It was Christmas Eve... and the night was both electric and still...anticipation and excitement and the promise of love everlasting almost palpable things in the icy air.

We sat silently as light...from moonlight smiling in through the great window...from the dancing glow of the blazing fireplace...from the gentle twinkling of festive lights on the stately Christmas tree in the corner...wrapped itself softly around us.

My eyes met hers and, yet again, words were not mine to adequately command. But in an exhilarating, terrifying instant we exchanged volumes that no mere talking could ever do justice to.

I took a deep breath and rose to my feet. I held out my hand (which seemed suddenly too big...too clumsy and too rough to be offered to one as fine and delicate as she) and she took it. Her hand was deliciously soft and warm, strong and fragile and humid...and, once again, I felt my heart threatening to rapturously explode.

I pulled her to her feet and she snuggled close to me. She rested her head against my chest (I think she made a joke about my heart pounding almost as hard as hers but I'm not sure. All I can remember is that her hair smelled like wildflowers and that, at that moment, I loved the smell of wildflowers more than anything else in the whole wide world.)

It was Christmas Eve. It was, I imagined, the first moment of Forever.

I murmured something about sleigh bells and she laughed. From the stereo, the music swayed sensuously...that Nat Cole was smooth as butter...and we swayed together right along with it.

Soft in the moonlight...in the firelight...in the colorful twinkling of Christmas tree light...we danced a graceful, awkward, utterly wondrous waltz of Christmas love and passion.

In the distance, a grand old clock started announcing Midnight in deep, resonant tones. We stopped and looked out the great window onto the snow glowing golden in the moonlight.

As the clock struck for the twelfth time, she reached up on tiptoes and put her hands around my neck. I pulled her up and we kissed...gently, firmly, chastely and carnally...kissed as though we would never be in that time…or in that place…ever again.

It was Christmas Eve...but that was a very long time ago...

"Forever" didn't last quite as long as I though it was supposed to. We loved fiercely and intimately for a while...breaking down barriers and looking forward to thousands of tomorrows. But doubt and memory of heartache and rejection past crept in and we retreated into fear.
Barriers were reinforced. And she left me (or I left her...or we left each other...the story molds itself to fit the expectations and sensibilities of whomever it's being told to.)

And I stopped thinking about her...except when moonlight turned the snow to gold...except when jazz singers crooned honeyed songs of the season...except every other waking moment of my life.

Four Christmases passed and life went on. I pretended to give my heart to other dancers along the way but the deceptions were always laid bare (sooner or later) and I was sent on my way.

As a fifth Christmas drew near, I again went through the motions of preparing for the festivities. I was alone and clinging to the whispers of memory that refused to let go.

Two nights before Christmas, as though we were characters in some sappy old movie, we ran into each other on a snowy corner.

I held tight to my packages as we stood there chatting self-consciously in the chill night air. She held tight to the hand of the quiet, wary fellow she was with.

As the world began to crash in on me, I excused myself and bid them a jaunty "Merry Christmas" as I scurried away. I cursed myself for a fool all the way home and on into the next day.

That next day, I sat staring at the phone all morning. And then, apprehensive and wistful and hopeful, I dialed her old number. To my surprise and delight and terror, she answered. I pushed the boulder in my throat aside and spoke. She seemed genuinely pleased to hear from me. We spoke of old times...of waltzing in the Christmas moonlight...of love and fear and getting on with our lives.

We chatted amiably for a long while and then we wished each other a happy holiday. I said "I still love you" about three seconds after she had said goodbye and hung up.

It was Christmas Eve. And that night, I made a fire and drew back the drapes on the great window. I sipped buttered rum from an old mug and stared at the fire in the fireplace. The Christmas tree in the corner, a perfunctory concession to the sensibilities of visitors, remained dark.

At Quarter to Midnight, the doorbell chimed and, as though we were characters in some old movie, I knew who was calling at that late hour.

She smiled shyly and handed me a large, gift-wrapped box. I invited her in and took her coat. She warmed herself by the fire and then wandered over to the tree.

She plugged the tree's lights in and the twinkling light was conjoined with the moonlight and the firelight and we stood...she next to the tree, me by the great window...transfixed by memory.

Silently, she drifted over to the fireplace. I went over to her. We looked into each other's eyes and, yet again, words were a discipline we could not master at that moment.

She began to hum..."The Christmas Song"...and, tentatively, I pulled her closer.

The tune swelled softly in our heads and we began to sway...to dance...to waltz in the beguiling mingling of light and memory and love lingering still.

And when the great clock started to toll Midnight, we stopped and looked into each other's eyes...love and nostalgia and anger and regret and passion, a gamut of bittersweet sensations, passed between us.

As the clock chimed for a twelfth sonorous time, she put her hand over my heart...it was still beating almost as hers she said with an affectionate, grateful smile. We kissed...gently, firmly, passionately...kissed knowing that this time was not that time.

But it was close enough.

I drew her tight into my arms...she pressed closer to me...and we danced again. In the moonlight, we were dancing. We were waltzing...waltzing into Christmas...waltzing into whatever tomorrow might bring.

It was Christmas Eve...

Not So Cynical Christmas Writing Contest

The 2005 winners of Cynic Online Magazine's annual Not So Cynical Christmas Writing Contest are posted as of this writing and yours truly did okay (see here).

Being more optimisitic than cynical during the Christmas season, I have written a number of Christmas stories and I submitted 3 (which was the limit) to this contest. I placed first with one story ("Prodigal Street") which would have been very cool in and of itself but I also took one of the two second place prizes with a second ("The End of the Rainbow") and got an honorable mention for the third ("Another Christmas Story".)

I'd be lying if I said I didn't think it was all very cool.

The stories on the the site (see link in the title or the first paragraph.)

As I've said before, I love this writing stuff (think I'll keep doing it for a bit.)