Still-Life
Page 7/7

There was a lost, willowy girl named Lucinda who babysat me back when I was just seven in New Jersey. Most Blessed Sacrament was my elementary school, located in Franklin Lakes, run by some good-hearted nuns. I was in first grade. Lucy looked so forlorn and wounded with her smoky, doe eyes. She was a dancer with closely cropped white hair. Lucinda’s neck and throat were outstanding and lovely, never ending. She was twelve, tops. She’d spin me around in our den, holding me with her long thin arms. Her whole being was a precise mix of beauty, and grace - her line was like an arc, a long oval shape her skinny arms made whenever she picked me up. “Do you tell your Momma that we dance around like this?” she asked me once. “Never,” I said, and she laughed.
“I like that answer,” she said. “You and me, Teddy. Unstoppable.”
“Together forever?” I asked, and she kissed my forehead.
“Birds of a feather,” she said. “Don’t ever think of breaking us apart, America, don’t even ponder such a sin. Teddy and Lucinda are soulmates.”
To this day, I miss Lucy more than I miss my own parents. There was something so permanent and good about her. Lucinda and Teddy, birds of a feather, solid. Lilac has been part of my life for quite some time, although I still don’t know who created her. Perhaps it was designed by a fractured soul surviving in a dicey section of Baltimore? Or a lonesome young man in Beijing trying to get ahead in his world?  Or a single mom working the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous in Baton Rouge, painting in her spare time? Or a middle-aged lady in crowded apartment in the Philippines, producing copy after copy of long-necked women? Or an aging salesman like my Pop living out of his golden Town Car in Tallahassee, painting whatever women could be found?
Presently, our townhouse is called River’s Ridge with eighteen homes, along with an exercise room and a pool and sauna tucked away in the woods. Maybe you could see the river when the place was built fifty-three years ago, but trees grow back and suburbia sprawls, and the only river we see now adorns the cheesy sign at the entrance. 
There’s even a meditation fountain, which emits a trickling water flowing over pebbles groove, a soothing sound. I bought one for myself recently and sometimes I close my eyes and drift through the decades with that wonderful hum in my ears. I see myself dancing with Lucy back in Jersey as a child, or driving with my Pop in his Town Car, speaking of his dad, a conductor on the Metro-North rail line from Union Station in New Haven to New York’s Grand Central and back again every day.  
Or I see myself in a crib as Mom plays her cello and her music fills the space. She’s wearing a bright cinnamon sweater, and her auburn hair is up, and it’s the fall of the year as she plays on our open porch, and neighbors comes by with cold drinks and assorted food, and I hear the ice cubes clinking together in all the cocktail glasses at the party. Mom loved to play cello more than she adored the world; once you absorbed that bewildering truth, you went on. Not easy, but you dealt with it, because when Mom got rolling and grooving, everyone forgot about their life and their own anguish, and so Lea and I forgot about ours, too.
I’ve learned through Dr. Owl’s guidance to be more selective with what I allow to scamper around inside my own brain. I say no to most carbs, porn, and reality TV. I enjoy Beethoven, Bach, Jason Isbell, Nanci Griffith and The Beatles, and a lot less horror. More Jackson Browne, Tracy Chapman, Rolling Stones, Al Green, The Eagles, Iris Dement, Paul Simon and Alabama Shakes, less noise. More poets like Baron Wormser, Rita Dove and Kim Bridgford.
My sister, Lea, plus my new girlfriend, Amy, who was my nurse briefly at the clinic and Dr. Owl would like me to celebrate the sublime events and embrace beauty more often. Dr. Owl said it doesn’t have to be huge Fourth of July-like Fireworks in New York, nor the thunderous roar of Niagara Falls, it can be something subdued, quiet. Like two neon-orange hummingbirds hovering near Amy’s first floor office window. Amy was at the grocery on that special day, so she didn’t spot the birds in action. When I told her all about the hummingbirds later, Amy laughed and said, “How do I even know what you say is true?”
“That’s easy, love,” I said. “Just ask Lilac – she never misses a thing.”