Affinity CoLab Presents: Simple Pleasures

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Copyright © 2019 by Affinity CoLab Presents All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

Affinity CoLab 20 E. Bridge St., Ste 103 Spring City, PA 19475 affinitycolabpresents.org

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MEMOIR

ART WORK Joy, Katy Comber / Cover Cooking, Roz Johnson / pg. 4 Garden, Roz Johnson / pg. 5 Whatever Happened To The Dream Sublime, Taylor Bielecki / pg. 9 Books, Roz Johnson / pg. 11 Teddy Bear, Roz Johnson / pg. 12 Farmers Market, Pat D’Innocenzo / pg. 14 You’ll Never Remember, I’ll Never Forget, Taylor Bielecki / pg. 16 They Say It’s Over And It Just Had To Be, Taylor Bielecki / pg. 18 Just Couldn’t Figure Out Which Way To Go, Taylor Bielecki /pg. 20 Apple, Roz Johnson / pg. 22 Storytelling, Roz Johnson / pg. 24 Neon Nights, Taylor Bielecki / pg. 26 The Jig Is Up, Taylor Bielecki / pg. 31 Butterfly, Roz Johnson / pg. 34 Reading, Roz Johnson / pg. 35 Anticipation, Rose DeLone / pg. 36

Dreams Never Die, Nick DeSantis / pg. 7-8 Waltzing With Bears Is To Be Encouraged, Abby Cohen / pg. 13 The Way Back, Beth Moulton / pg. 27-30 Elusive Simple Pleasure, Donna Wilhelm / pg. 33 Down The Rabbit Hole: The Simple Pleasure of Taking a Chance, Abby Cohen / pg. 37

POETRY Saturday Tsunami, Pat D’Innocenzo / pg. 15 Omega Expectations, Steve Koelsch / pg. 17 Haiku, Steve Koelsch / pg. 17 Selection from Inner Knowing, Debbie Carrier / pg. 19 Selection from Simple Pleasures, Debbie Carrier / pg. 21 Selection from Affirmations, Debbie Carrier / pg. 23 Simple Pleasures, Katy Comber / pg. 25 Anticipation, Rose DeLone / pg. 36 Two Left Feet, Pat D’Innocenzo / pg. 38 Circus Day, Pat D’Innocenzo / pg. 39

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Cooking Roz Johnson




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Garden Roz Johnson


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Dreams Never Die Nick DeSantis Music is a universal language. Music cuts across all boundaries, including age & time.

One thing all people, especially young people, have in common are dreams about their idols.

Even though the music has changed, the dreams have not. It doesn’t matter if you were one of Frank Sinatra’s Bobby Soxers, or are one of Lady Gaga’s Little Monsters, or anywhere in between. The dreams are alive. This is a story of one young man’s infatuation with a pop star and how the dreams inspired by this infatuation never die.

On Thursday, July 21 1983, I anticipated with great expectation the end of a ten day heat wave. That afternoon the mercury hit ninety-five degrees for the last time that summer. With greater expectation and anticipation I awaited Diana Ross to walk on stage, for a free concert which was to become a historic music event. It was legendary in pop history and had a huge influence on my life and in my future. I was just one of 800,000 people in New York’s Central Park that evening. The crowd exploded in applause and screams as Diana took the stage and a great spotlight shone upon her.

Diana sang as the wind started to blow stronger and eventually it began to rain. Two and a half inches of rain fell in Central Park while she sang that evening. Soaking wet she challenged the audience not to be afraid of the rain. She referred to the torrential downpour as a “love shower.” I remember how frightened I felt by the ominous sky as it grew darker. But I was more taken by her comment of a “love shower.” Wow, I thought, I’m in a love shower with Diana Ross. The thought that the same rain was pelting both our faces at the same time continued to be a great source of comfort to me through the storm, which was worsening by the second.

I felt we were somehow protecting each other. I felt a real connection to her on that night, and dreams of my future, possibly with Diana consumed my mind. The storm became severe. It began to thunder and lightning. The crowd started to leave the park and many people began to panic. Diana asked the crowd to leave calmly and find safe shelter. She invited everyone to return the next evening and promised she’d be there to sing. She repeated several times as we were leaving the park “I love you all and I see each one of you. I see your magnificence” Wow! Wow! I wondered was it possible that Diana Ross actually saw me? I’d made up my mind that I would return the next night. I thought she might recognize my magnificence again.

I wondered if it was possible we could ever meet? I wondered what it would be like to be her boyfriend or just her friend. I wondered what it must be like to be that famous. What sort of things would we do, where would we go? I thought we might go to Studio 54 and hang out with Cher, Billy Dee, Liza, and Michael. Or maybe the two of us would just stay in and relax in her multimillion dollar Manhattan apartment. I’d do whatever she wanted to do. I wondered what she felt, and how she thought. I wondered what it was like to be Diana Ross?

I did return to the concert the next evening, along with nearly one million people and was mesmerized by everything about her. I was very far from the stage, and she was just a small image barely visible. Still there were times I thought she was looking at me, even gesturing and singing to me. As I took Amtrak home that night, I continued to dream of my life with Diana. As

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the train pulled into 30th street station and I took the R5, my dreams began to diminish but never died.

Through the years I’ve remained a devoted Diana Ross fan. I’ve gone to all of her concerts in the area. Once at Caesar’s in Atlantic City, I gave the Maître a little extra and he sat me and a friend at the first seats of a center table right at the stage. I imagined how I would feel when Diana recognized me and paused during the concert to introduce a dear friend of hers. Well she did look at me and smiled several times, and she was life sized this time. I kept thinking that she recognized me.

Over the next thirteen years my life took me in many directions I didn’t want to go. Or I shouldn’t have gone. Or I had no choice in as fate had written its decisions. However my life was enriched by many of these experiences. But they did cause dreams to be overwhelmed by reality.

They did cause my great passion for life to wane. I was getting older and I often wished feelings from the past would be or could be rekindled.

On a late July night in 1996 I was working my 5:00 PM to 1:00 AM shift. As I left work it was raining lightly and it had cooled down from the earlier temperature of 95 degrees. As I drove home, I had the windows down and I could feel the warm breeze and light rain hit me. I was alone on the road; in the near distance, I saw the light turn yellow. As I turned my head left to look out the window, I stopped at the red light. I felt the cool rain increase and begin to pelt my face. I looked across an empty field and in the distance and saw a large spotlight which shone on me. I was Diana Ross. My hair was Diana’s. My skin was Diana’s. My thoughts and feelings were Diana’s. My voice was Diana’s. I was Diana as she was on July 21st those many years ago.

The empty field had become Central Park and I could hear hundreds of thousands applaud and scream for me, as I found myself singing “Endless Love.” As I tossed my hair over my right shoulder and turned my face forward, the light turned green. Diana left me. I was Nick, and I drove home.

I know deep within myself that Diana Ross shared that experience with me. That somehow we switched bodies and minds. We had developed a connection those many years ago on that stormy night in Central Park. The only difference is she really has no idea who I am. I’ve often thought about what she might have been doing that late July night in 1996. If she was out for drinks or a late supper she might have thought she had one too many or maybe she ate something that gave her indigestion. If she was performing on stage, she may have felt odd for a few seconds or had trouble hitting a note. Maybe she was even singing “Endless Love.” Or if she was asleep she may have jumped like she was having a falling dream. I really think and believe if we ever meet, or even if we just made eye contact for a few seconds something within her would awaken and she would know exactly who I am and what happened on the night that I became Diana Ross and Diana Ross became me.

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Whatever Happened To The Dream Sublime Taylor Bielecki


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Books Roz Johnson


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Teddy Bear Roz Johnson

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Waltzing With Bears Is To Be Encouraged Abby Cohen Recently, I found myself on a rainy night, I might even say it was dark and stormy, in this aging woman’s apartment surrounded by folksingers of my parents age more than mine. As parties go, it was rather stark. The hostess had put very little on the table, it was supposedly a potluck but what people had brought wasn’t much. The choices of liquid were limited to coffee, soda, and water.

I try not to drink coffee at night, and soda rarely. So I sat on the sofa drinking water, munched on a selection of raw carrots and broccoli, and contemplated which song to choose as we went around in a circle singing songs. My pick near the end of the evening was “Waltzing With Bears.”

As we all joined in, singing and/or playing the music respectively, my friend Diane—the much more social half of a married couple, her husband Lee—a bushy teddy bear of a man, but somewhat quiet until you address him directly to get him started, stood. Diane dragged Lee into the center of the room, and they waltzed.

Well, not really. Sort of swaying awkwardly in a circle. As I watched these two people, who’ve been married longer than I’ve been alive, sway gently as we sang “My Uncle Walter Goes Waltzing With Bears” it made me really happy and hopeful for the future. Love is real and possible and includes awkward waltzing in front of old friends.

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The Farmers Market Pat D’Innocenzo

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Saturday Tsunami Pat D’Innocenzo Colors.

Brash, Screaming for attention.

Vocal, Insistent, Unrelenting No possibility to look away.

Smells.

Evocative, Enticing imagination to play.

Exotic, Seductive, Disturbing A fleeting memory touched.

Taste the sweet, the sour, the spice.

Touch the firm, the rough, the supple.

Hear the noise, the music, the joy.

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You’ll Never Remember, I’ll Never Forget Taylor Bielecki

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Omega Expectations Steve Koelsch Minds playing in the mind fields hoping to be blown away and imprinted by hot hard shrapnel such that months or years later as it works it’s way to the surface, we will squeeze it till it pops free.

What can we grow here?

What part of this is real?

Shall we call it being “Open to the odd moment?”

The silent symphony searches for its voice, as thin shavings from the muse tree land softly like wind rustling leaves, searching for a heart open enough to hear.

Haiku Steve Koelsch No thing, let it go!

No thing blocks the path to yourself, your self is no thing.

Nothing, let it go!

Nothing blocks the path to yourself, your self is nothing.

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They Say It’s Over And It Just Had To Be Taylor Bielecki

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Selection from Inner Knowing / 2019 deep blue river musings Debbie Carrier I like feeling that my story and my assignments for this life Are written on me (there's power in the blood) Actually in me—in my DNA (that it's part of the recording) In all those X's and O's On's and offs; cross hatchings Cave paintings, pictographs, phonographs Spinning I like loving the me that I am But constantly allowing for Change For the re-write At the midnight hour Daily In each Second.

I like feeling that my story and my assignments for this life Are written on me. In me. ( there's power in the blood)

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Just Couldn’t Figure Out Which Way To Go Taylor Bielecki

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Selection from Simple Pleasures / 2018 deep blue river musings Debbie Carrier That's what it feels like; Biting into a chocolate chip cookie.

Like Heaven.

Like the power of a beating heart Like the giant flow of electricity Like a warm bath Like the waters Like bending Like fluidity I go down so deep. I fall down; roll around Like dog and butterfly So tasty.

That chocolate.

Speaks‌ ‌Through you, all the simple pleasures The power to just be and Watch it happen through me Watch the dough rise Watch the night skies Watch paradise Come off my fingers

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Apple Roz Johnson


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Selection from Affirmations! / 2019 deep blue river musings Debbie Carrier The touch of the hand of a 3 year old; Reaching out for affirmation.

A newborn lying on your chest after a bath.

Fresh cut grass! A cloudless night; Where all the stars Seem perfectly aligned, And you Close By The curve of a back The length of an arm The height of a leg The measure of a man Every day Since time Began.

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Storytelling Roz Johnson


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Simple Pleasures Katy Comber Winter Sharp silent sensation snow declaring its presence Earl gray; fuzzy socks Spring Sunshine peaking through fog; saying, “I’m still here.” filtering through sheer curtains, onto a pile of favored volumes mixing with those yet to be cracked and read bowl of pistachios nestled in shells awaiting their fate kittens curled, purr, unfurl, and reach to catch the light Summer Nights: A long drive with no particular destination; the perfect song at the perfect time while the windows are down, the wind lifts my hair, the moon high and car seats redolent with chlorine and sunscreen Fall The aromatic hit as you stroll into Staples.

School supply lists and apples picked straight from high limbs Cider doughnuts fresh from the baker’s hands

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Neon Nights Taylor Bielecki


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The Way Back Beth Moulton “Mommm …” I said from the wayback of the paneled station wagon. “I’m thirsty.”

It was 1968, the year of Martin and Bobby, the year that I turned thirteen. And while the country hurtled towards the future on a wave of protest and violence our family raced west at 75 mph towards my father’s childhood home, an unwinding of time, to places unchanged in his memory.

“There’s water in the cooler,” Mom said.

“I’m not thirsty for water.”

“Then you’re not thirsty. We just passed a rest stop. The next one is an hour away. Don’t drink too much.”

There were eight of us crammed in that car, with books and the license plate game the only distractions for us six kids. Dad had rolled up the back window after my brother Rick had committed the infraction of sticking his arm out to flash peace signs at the truckers that hurtled passed us in the rocky cuts of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Great slabs of rock canted upwards along the sides of the highway, from mud laid flat in some ancient sea and then heaved skyward by a force so violent the damage is still visible millions of years later. There were seven tunnels cut through the mountains in Pennsylvania: Blue Mountain, Kittatinny, Tuscarora, Sideling Hill, Rays Hill, Allegheny and Laurel Hill. They were like portals, sucking us westward, backwards in time. *** Rick and I were in the wayback, the seats furthest from our parents. We were the oldest so we got the extra few inches of space that the wayback provided. Only two kids fit back there, on two seats that flipped up from the floor of the car to face each other. The wayback was the best place in the car. We weren’t sitting cheek to cheek with a family member. We were out of reach of our Dad, who, when annoyed, would just blindly reach back and smack the first kid he came in contact with as a lesson to the others. Rick and I guarded our seats in the car as if we were the rightful heirs in some station wagon dynasty. Mom and Dad sat in the front seat with one smallish child between them. The other three kids sat in the middle seat. It was the same arrangement as when we went to church every Sunday.

Rick at fourteen was a year older than me, both of us on the cusp of adulthood, or at least the fantasy of adulthood. We spent most of our time putting as much distance between ourselves and our parents as we could. It was like we were waiting to bolt—from the car, from our family, from our town—waiting for adulthood to sweep us away from all that we knew into something bigger and brighter. From the wayback we watched our past unfurl behind us, along with clouds of summer dust and roadkill. Even though our father was driving us towards his past, our future couldn’t be denied, and we could see it if we squinted at the heat mirages that swirled up from the glare of the highway, the wavering visions promising to quench every thirst that we had. But we were still too young to understand that mirages are just as likely to deliver hundreds of miles of parched road. *** On June 8, 1968, 22 servicemen died in Vietnam.

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*** The Catholic Church catches its members early. Baptism happens at about two weeks, sooner for a sickly child, and wham! you’re in. It becomes part of the blood, this religion that latches on before a baby can even lift its head.

In the 1950’s and 1960’s the Catholic Church was strict about babies receiving saints’ names. In our family it was Richard, Elizabeth, Bonnie, Sandra, Michael, Kathleen. Of course, these gave way to nicknames: Rick, Beth, Bonnie, Sandy, Mike and Kathy. Saints’ names have too much formality for a child, so once the nickname was bestowed, it stuck forever. We were often surprised to learn the given name of a deceased friend or relative at their funeral, after we had spent a lifetime calling them something else.

Bobby Kennedy’s nickname worked for him. Yes, we knew his name was Robert. The nuns had told us about the Kennedys, how they were a Catholic role model. We knew Bobby had a legitimate saints’ name like the rest of us. But everyone knew him as Bobby. We understood that, too. It was the name of a friend, even if you haven’t met him yet. When someone introduces you to a Bobby you feel like you’ve known them forever. And this Bobby who we’d never met but still felt that we knew, was being buried today, next to his murdered brother, our first Catholic President. We were young, but we were getting used to the best of our generation being killed. *** The station wagon was a concession from my father to his ever-growing Catholic family.

Converting to Catholicism when he married my mom was yet another concession after being raised as a casual Methodist. I’m not sure if moving to my mother’s hometown, 1,300 miles from the farm where he had been raised, was a concession or an escape. But I didn’t think about those things at the time. I hadn’t outgrown the self-centeredness of a child and was not yet aware of the ebb and flow of relationships, the things that are expected, the things that we trade away and the things that we get in return. *** Bobby Kennedy had two older brothers; he was not the heir apparent to the ambitions of his father, Joseph Kennedy, Sr. But the older brothers died and Bobby stepped up, had to step up, was forced to step up, to do the right thing, carry on the name, please the father, honor the brothers. There’s this thing that happens when a brother or sister dies young, that now you feel like you have to live two lives, since theirs was cut short. There’s always a small voice saying that you need to do better, work harder, bring honor to those who didn’t live long enough to do the things that they needed or wanted or were required to accomplish. Always a voice saying that you need to do more. Bobby was a double member of the “dead brother club.” It must have been a heavy weight. *** The annual summer trips from Philadelphia to South Dakota always began at 6 AM. My father believed in keeping a strict schedule. He had a compulsion for “making good time” and anything that slowed us down provoked him. “I’m not making a lot of bathroom stops so if you drink too much you’ll just have to hold it.” It was on one of these trips that I had my first case of penis envy. Not because I wanted one of my own, but because I wanted to be able to pee by the side of the highway.

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*** We looked forward to visiting the cousins that we only saw once a year, seeing the farms that still remained in the family, riding ponies, petting calves. It was on one of these farms that I learned that you don’t name what you’re going to eat. It was later, after eavesdropping on my father and his brothers, that I learned about the staggering debt incurred by purchasing farm equipment on credit. Trying to keep things as they’ve always been involves a cost, different from the cost of embracing change, but still a debt that can be called at any time. *** The twelve fatherless Kennedy children, the children of Bobby and Jack, participated in Bobby’s funeral mass. Several of the boys were altar boys, other children brought the bread and wine to the altar so that they could be consecrated for the sacrament of Communion. Many of the people who attended the funeral openly wept. The children remained dry-eyed while they performed their duties. *** On one of our yearly South Dakota visits my brothers and sisters and I saw our first hail storm. We laughed at the magical appearance of the golf ball sized chunks of ice, scooping them up in our hands while our parents grew silent. They didn’t shush us, even as they watched the hail flatten the corn in the fields. They allowed us our childhood moment of wonder even in the face of devastation. Perhaps it was like wishing that children will believe in Santa for just one more year, a hope that childhood can linger just a little longer.

Within a generation the farms were gone, swallowed by debt or broken up by descendants into pieces too small for cattle or crops. Sold to builders who were sure to include the word “farm” as part of the name of the new development. *** My parents were listening to the car radio, which they kept tuned all day to any AM station that was covering the funeral of Bobby Kennedy, and his final train ride from New York to Washington DC for his burial. Hour after hour, as we drove west and as each radio signal faded to static, my mother would fiddle with the dial until she found a local station that carried news of Bobby. As my youngest sister slept between them on the front seat my parents murmured to each other. My mother sighed a lot. Sometimes she wiped her eyes, maybe from the sun I thought, though it was behind us until noon. *** It is possible to go home again, but it is never the same as it was. It remains frozen in the mind of the person who left, the people not aging, the trees not growing, everything unchanged and waiting for the prodigal to return. But time does not wait for the prodigal. The boys and girls grow into adults, the adults grow into old people. The saplings planted as a windbreak now hide the house from the road. The old windmills are gone, in favor of electric poles and wires. It is to this sea of change that my father returned every year, trying to hold on to, or trying to remember, the past. It is a touchstone, a pilgrimage, a need to say “this used to be my home.” But is that recognition outweighed by the grief of change? Every visit things are different and it won’t be long for the farms and the cows and the horses and it won’t be long for the Olsen’s, who were newlyweds when he was a boy but still the station wagon hurtles at just over the posted speed

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limit, as if it can move faster than the speed of time and keep some of the changes from happening, if even just for one year, keep this place frozen just as it was in the amber of memory. *** Me and my semi-dehydrated siblings, unimpeded by car seats or safety belts, moved on to our next level of amusement. Tormenting each other.

“Mom, he pinched me …” *** and they lined up along the tracks, young girls in their Catholic school uniforms, men in work clothes, the black and the brown and the white, housewives carrying babies, bikers next to nuns holding rosaries, some men holding hats over their hearts, some crying, some waving, some reaching out as if they could touch him, and the heat of that day and that year pressed down on them, melding them into something different than they had been before, and as the train crept passed there were American flags and signs people had made, because they had to do something, anything, for this man who had tried so hard to help them, and here they were all together now to do this one last thing and the train groaned onwards and just before it disappeared around the curve the women held up the sign that said “So Long, Bobby” *** On June 8, 1968, the fugitive James Earl Ray, the suspect in the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr., was arrested in London. *** It takes six hours to drive across Pennsylvania. By noon we reached Ohio and the landscape flattened out. The horizon in the flatlands is further away than it appears, which is deceptive to those of us used to being enclosed by a hilly landscape. The land stays flat for the rest of the trip, all the way through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa (in interminable “corn state”) and into South Dakota. I think the flatness calmed my father. Roads had been carved by settlers into true north/south and east/west orientation. The orderliness seemed to please him. Eastern roads are unruly, what with their habits of clinging to ridges and riverbanks, winding up and down hills, passing houses that have to hang onto each other just to stay upright. The firm taming hand, or is it fist? of civilization had its way with the Midwest. But the sky is a part of everything that happens there, and the storms that come from it can kill you, just as a reminder that people are not in charge. *** Bobby Kennedy’s funeral train was not making good time. It left New York later than expected, after the funeral mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The casket was in the last car of the train, the car named “Philadelphia.” The train moved slowly, sometimes as slowly as two mph, as if trying to postpone forever its terrible conclusion, allowing the millions of people that lined the tracks one final look towards their Bobby.

Arriving at Arlington Cemetery over four hours late, Bobby was buried at 10:30 PM by the soft light of a cloud-shrouded moon and hundreds of candles. He is buried very close to his brother Jack, the murdered President. Perhaps there is a comfort in that. ***

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The Jig Is Up Taylor Bielecki


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Elusive Simple Pleasure Donna Wilhelm There are many simple pleasures -- a cozy blanket, an uninterrupted cup of tea, a good book. But what about the elusive ones? The ones that, like butterflies, can be just within grasp, then slip away? I speak, of course, of rest -Rest is different from sleep. Sleep, I can do. I am a championship sleeper. If sleeping were an Olympic sport, I'd take the gold. I cannot say, however, the last time I woke up feeling rested. No matter how much I sleep, I never seem to capture the rest I need; so I'm perpetually exhausted. It's a vicious cycle.

To restore my energy, I've increased my iron and vitamin D intake. I feel better, but rest still doesn't come. My doctor narrowed the causes of my problem to two: peri-menopause and sleep apnea, an airway blockage during the sleep cycle that leads to abnormal breathing and sleep interruption. The former is temporary, with a finite resolution. The latter requires the use of a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine at night while sleeping -- complete with a breathing mask.

Sexy, no?

The whole idea, while guaranteed to help me get the rest I need, turns me off. I imagine turning to my husband in bed and saying (insert Darth Vader voice here), "Rich, I'm your wife."

I once took rest for granted. I miss waking up ready for the day. I miss coming home after work and doing something constructive before bed time. These days, my pajamas are all I can think about on my way home from work. I look at my children and think, "If I only had their energy..."

In the end, health and peace of mind will win out over this point of pride. I still have a lot to do with my life; I just need the rest and energy to do it all. To paraphrase Shakespeare, who was no slouch when it came to his life's work, "To sleep, perchance to rest."

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Butterfly Roz Johnson


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Reading Roz Johnson


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Anticipation Rose DeLone Snowy owl in flight As full moon greets the night Eager faces turn and smile Watch the bride glide down the aisle Pine trees inside a winter cone Whisper hope to the vast unknown

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Down The Rabbit Hole: The Simple Pleasure of Taking a Chance Abby Cohen I have occasionally bought lottery tickets for other people as little presents to attach to some larger present. Only once have I bought a ticket for myself. I was twenty-three and working in the nursing home when a group of friends decided to buy a whole bunch of tickets together.

I can’t remember what momentous peak the lottery had reached in prize money. Nor do I remember how many tickets we bought total, what I had to chip in or how many people there were in the group. I simply remember that I went home and announced that I had bought tickets in the lottery and the various joking around that ensued.

We’ve never been a lottery kind of family. My dad actually disapproves of it at this point, although I don’t think he started voicing his opinion on the subject till much later. The fact that the state sponsors gambling, mostly taking money from addicts and aiding and abetting their addiction bugs him. So no surprise that buying a few tickets was greeted as though I had done something novel and different.

I guess because I had. I will not leave you in suspense. I didn’t win anything. But the night I’d bought the tickets, before I knew that, sitting around talking, my mother said “What would you do if you won?” Well there was only one obvious answer.

Open a bookstore. And then we stopped and thought about it. Why did I need to win the lottery to open a bookstore? Well, it turns out I didn’t. I pointed out that I kept bombing out of school and maybe we should put the money allotted for my college education to something I would actually love and do well at. And that was it.

We were off and running, diving down the rabbit hole with no going back. Maybe it was the right choice. Maybe it wasn’t. But it’s odd to look back and think-What if I hadn’t bought those lottery tickets? What if I hadn’t gambled? If I hadn’t taken a risk, where would I be now?

What would my life be like? All because of a lottery ticket.

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Two Left Feet Pat D’Innocenzo Tap shoes are noisy.

Shuffle step, shuffle step.

Pay attention! Look at me!

Ballet shoes are deceiving.

Shiny satin, wooden toes, laces up the leg, Leap left, spin right, jete after jete.

Flamenco shoes are high & tight & determined.

Pounded into the ground, pushed to their limit, Statuesque despite abuse.

Harem shoes are soft & silent.

Whispers of movement Underpinning the shakes and rattles of undulating hips.

Jazz shoes lace up tight.

Conservative cousins to the outgoing tap, Sliding & hopping their way to fame.

Stripper shoes are fantasy a flight, Saucy innuendo on heels.

Come hither, don’t touch, slink away.

Every movement a new note in the dance.

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Circus Day

by Pat D’Innocenzo Giggle, Giggle, Watch the bears wiggle.

Wipe away frowns.

Here come the clowns.

Elephants roar.

We’re waiting for more.

Horses that jangle, Girls in bright spangles, Tigers in cages It’s fun for all ages.

Pennants and banners Use your good manners.

Tick-tock, tick-tock They’re just down the block.

Psychics tell all.

Stilt people stand tall.

Calliope sounds.

Laughter abounds.

Big top had risen.

Fun is a given.

Lots more to see Buy a ticket for me.

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