A Dentist's Chair

http://writeonedge.com/ prompt: This week, with Labor Day and the end of summer rapidly approaching, we asked you to write about a season of change for your character or you. It can be literal or metaphorical.

"A Dentist’s Chair"

It, my life, is sort of like being at the dentist.  Anticipation fills me up like a balloon on the brink of popping.  I am utterly freaked out by the familiar smell of a dentist office, the length of the needle, and the sound of the drill. Hesitantly, sometimes even haphazardly, I willingly place myself in the chair and lie back  - hoping, praying that this visit go better than the last one I have tightly stored in the right hemisphere of my brain.  I place a slanted, but closed, tight smile on my face and listen to the doctor.  I watch her come a little closer.  My body jerks.  The slightest touch of latex-free rubber on my upper lip sends my blood racing through my veins and heading toward my heart.  I’m shaken, frightened, think I may even breathe my last breath in this cold, ugly, blue leather lounger.  But, I put on a brave face.  (My bulging brown eyes might seal the deal for a Razzie award nomination.)

 I’m being poked, prodded and numbed.

What is going to happen next? 

What do I want to happen?

What am I waiting for, exactly?

Perhaps I don’t know what I’m waiting for.  Or what I’ve been waiting for isn’t showing up, so it’s the empty expectations I project that fill me up with ramped emotions, and I wish I could condition myself to let things be. I’m a grown woman. I can handle this! 

Little by little, my big girl panties start making an appearance, until I hear:

“Okay, Mary Jane, you’re all set.  We’ll see you in two weeks” 

What!  I have to go through this experience again?

I have to feel anxious, nervous, and wait for what is expected, but doesn’t always present itself.  What, again, is the expected? 

I am so frustrated for feeling these emotions in the first place.  I have to have a confused sense of trying myself at bravery and being a coward at the same time.  This is my life and I’ll feel this way when I want to.  Two weeks is just too soon.  But sometimes, time isn’t on our side. And sometimes, even though the novocaine wears off, I still have days that leave me numb. Sometimes.

Until the next time…

Peace and love - MJ

Poem: A Moment She'll Never Get Back

A Moment She’ll Never Get Back

He waited at the end of
narrow aisle
atop of the

Altar. Black tuxedo,
crisp white shirt,
and bowtie, crooked like his

Personality. She in pure silk,
hand sewn and adorned by
a human hand, waited
behind thick oak doors

in the church corridor.
A blast of air from the doors
swinging open sent her veil
into her face.  Incense and the fragrance of
Tiger Lillies swept through,
up her nostrils that were tucked behind
a layer of tulle.  Her father

next to her, raised his arm
elbow pointed – her cue
to lock her flowerless hand
around his wrist. Music,

Eyes and flashes, whispers
attacked the girl, each step
closer appearing longer in time,

shorter in distance. Enough
time to convince herself.

Mary Jane Mircovich - 2010

Poem: An Ode to Joe

Joe

It isn’t the early morning sound
Annoyingly invading my ear
That causes my body to ascend.

No. It is my mind’s addiction.
Its need
That lifts me from seven hours of rest.

Eyes open,
Thoughts scattering for a few moments
Until they firmly fix themselves onto one element,
Reciting its divine name in my head.

Haphazardly,
I stumble though the hall,
Into the so-called woman’s place in a home. 

There, in silence,
My movement becomes automatic – like a robot,
Systematic.

Indonesia. Columbia. Brazil. Hawaii.
I suppose I should be grateful to all

Start – the green light illuminates.

Done – three steady beeps go off.

Yes.

Columbia.

My gratefulness rests, in great, 

To those select few
Who mistakenly founded my mind’s habit
eons ago in Ethiopia. 

My morning jolt of perfection is indebted to those.

Mary Jane Mircovich - 2010

My Favorite Poem

Here is a powerful poem I think we can all relate to in some way or another...past, present and maybe even future.

Peace and Love - MJ 

Please Hear What I'm Not Saying

Don't be fooled by me.
Don't be fooled by the face I wear
for I wear a mask, a thousand masks,
masks that I'm afraid to take off,
and none of them is me.

Pretending is an art that's second nature with me,
but don't be fooled,
for God's sake don't be fooled.
I give you the impression that I'm secure,
that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well
as without,
that confidence is my name and coolness my game,
that the water's calm and I'm in command
and that I need no one,
but don't believe me.
My surface may seem smooth but my surface is my mask,
ever-varying and ever-concealing.
Beneath lies no complacence.
Beneath lies confusion, and fear, and aloneness.
But I hide this. I don't want anybody to know it.
I panic at the thought of my weakness exposed.
That's why I frantically create a mask to hide behind,
a nonchalant sophisticated facade,
to help me pretend,
to shield me from the glance that knows.

But such a glance is precisely my salvation, my only hope,
and I know it.
That is, if it's followed by acceptance,
if it's followed by love.
It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself,
from my own self-built prison walls,
from the barriers I so painstakingly erect.
It's the only thing that will assure me
of what I can't assure myself,
that I'm really worth something.
But I don't tell you this. I don't dare to, I'm afraid to.
I'm afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance,
will not be followed by love.
I'm afraid you'll think less of me,
that you'll laugh, and your laugh would kill me.
I'm afraid that deep-down I'm nothing
and that you will see this and reject me.

So I play my game, my desperate pretending game,
with a facade of assurance without
and a trembling child within.
So begins the glittering but empty parade of masks,
and my life becomes a front.
I idly chatter to you in the suave tones of surface talk.
I tell you everything that's really nothing,
and nothing of what's everything,
of what's crying within me.
So when I'm going through my routine
do not be fooled by what I'm saying.
Please listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying,
what I'd like to be able to say,
what for survival I need to say,
but what I can't say.

I don't like hiding.
I don't like playing superficial phony games.
I want to stop playing them.
I want to be genuine and spontaneous and me
but you've got to help me.
You've got to hold out your hand
even when that's the last thing I seem to want.
Only you can wipe away from my eyes
the blank stare of the breathing dead.
Only you can call me into aliveness.
Each time you're kind, and gentle, and encouraging,
each time you try to understand because you really care,
my heart begins to grow wings--
very small wings,
very feeble wings,
but wings!

With your power to touch me into feeling
you can breathe life into me.
I want you to know that.
I want you to know how important you are to me,
how you can be a creator--an honest-to-God creator--
of the person that is me
if you choose to.
You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble,
you alone can remove my mask,
you alone can release me from my shadow-world of panic,
from my lonely prison,
if you choose to.
Please choose to.

Do not pass me by.
It will not be easy for you.
A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.
The nearer you approach to me
the blinder I may strike back.
It's irrational, but despite what the books say about man
often I am irrational.
I fight against the very thing I cry out for.
But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls
and in this lies my hope.
Please try to beat down those walls
with firm hands but with gentle hands
for a child is very sensitive.

Who am I, you may wonder?
I am someone you know very well.
For I am every man you meet
and I am every woman you meet.

Charles C. Finn
September 1966

"It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year...For the Most Part."

**This is one of my favorite, old pieces.  Originally written in 2009 and revisited in 2010**

Enjoy :)

"It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year...For the Most Part."

     It’s early October and the leaves are just starting to change, but I’ve been thinking about Christmas since July.  Halloween hasn’t even come and gone, but the stores are already preparing and putting out their Holiday merchandise.  And I love it!  I could, (I think I could anyway), have a Christmas tree up all year round.  People would think I’m whacky, but I don’t care.  I love sitting in my living room staring at my Christmas tree that has given me war-wounds just from putting it up.  I love staring at all of the 1,000 lights that I have tightly twisted onto each fake branch; the same lights that I have taken down mid-way because it didn’t look right, or because I forgot to check that they do still, in fact, work.  I love staring at the ornaments on the tree that my children have made for me. The ornaments from Disney World, and the ones that would break my heart if a tiny hand got a hold of them and used it as a soccer ball.

Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without a trip on a New Jersey Transit bus into New York City.  I do it every year, but it never gets old.  The tree at Rockefeller Center looks the same every year.  It’s always big, really big, with thousands of multi-colored lights and a gold star placed on top.  There are tourists, myself included, crowding the streets.  There’s a traffic jam on every street corner, and every street vendor is trying to sell me a bag that looks like it was stitched together by my five-year-old.  But I love it! I’ll freeze and wait the fifteen minutes for Sax Fifth Avenue’s next light and music show.  The front of the building is adorned with huge snowflakes that “dance” perfectly to the Holiday song that’s being played.  It lasts a whole two minutes, but certainly worth frostbit hands and the fifteen-minute wait. Okay, it’s really not that special. But if you’re a tourist, watching this show helps you earn your tourist approval stamp. 

I’ll deal with the really long restroom lines and people trying to push their way past me inside Radio City Music Hall.  The Christmas Spectacular starring The Radio City Rockettes rarely ever changes, but it’s a joy to watch. There’s something about watching the “Toy Solider” scene where they go down like dominoes that has me in awe every time.  And let’s not forget those perfectly synchronized legs doing their famous kicks!

Last year’s show was a new experience.  I brought my daughter, Francesca, for the first time.  She was four then and I thought she’d be ready.  My son Vincent, who is seven, has been coming since he was three. He becomes a statue with his eyes glued to the stage once that curtain goes up.  You should see how much popcorn misses his mouth.  But my daughter was afraid of Santa, even though our seats were not close at all (second mezzanine to be exact).  Five minutes into the show she fell asleep and woke up just in time to leave.  All her popcorn was still in the souvenir bucket.  Maybe this year she’ll make a mess.

Most people say they hate Christmas because of the craziness of buying gifts.  Francesca wants this!  Vincent wants that! And my youngest, Angelina, wants the hottest toy of the season that I now have to buy on eBay for three times the cost because every retailer is sold-out. Tickle Me Elmo is not all that great anyway.  My kids broke it in three days. The stores become a madhouse.  I’ve experienced the downright madness from being a shopper and also from working in a retail store through many painful Holiday seasons.  And the parking just stinks!  Bah humbug to all those parking-spot thieves!  Yeah, the ones who wait on the opposite side of you and sneak in before you get the chance, or sneak in because the car that pulled out gave them the advantage.  I know, I was sitting and waiting with my blinker on first, but they don’t care.  Scrooge you!

 And then there’s Christmas Eve.  It is probably my most stressful, crazy, chaotic day of the season. We are running from one household to the next spreading some Christmas cheer.  We are running from one store to the next picking up last minute gifts. Everyone is doing the same thing I am since there is traffic everywhere! The lines at some stores are out the door, and people are cranky (but it’s their own fault - shop early!).   I swear this year I am doing nothing but drinking eggnog, which I don’t even like, and singing Christmas carols all day on Christmas Eve. 

My Christmas Eve night won’t change, though, and maybe my fellow members of the parent’s club would agree.  We’ve got to prepare a lot for the children on this most sacred night of December 24^th.  First, there’s wrapping all of Santa’s gifts in secrecy.  Now, that’s hard to do when your children are sleeping only 20 feet away.  And that’s only if they are sleeping and not diligently trying to stay awake for the arrival of Santa and his reindeer. Not only are the kids in their rooms lying awake for some time, but they also keep coming out to check that their cookies and milk didn’t magically disappear.  Or maybe they’re hoping to catch Santa in the act.  I know that’s why I always came out of my room as a kid on Christmas Eve.  I was hoping to run into this so-called Saint who was really like a God to me.

Wrapping is time-consuming too, since “Santa” is a generous, jolly old man. I also have to make sure I’ve used completely different wrapping paper than I have on the other gifts that are not from good ol’ St. Nick.  Kids notice these things.  After the wrapping is done, it’s off to eat some cookies and pour some milk down the drain.  My kids didn’t forget that Santa would be hungry and thirsty when he arrived.

The kids will certainly be up at the crack of dawn on Christmas morning. I don’t mind, though.  Their faces are priceless when they knock each other over to get out of their bedrooms and realize that Toys r Us has been shut down due to lack of inventory. The kids attack!  They can’t finish unwrapping one gift before they move on to the next.  It’s pure excitement and joy for them, and it is for me, too. Christmas morning with my children is my favorite time of the season.  All the stress, aggravation, freezing cold weather, credit card bills and Scrooges that I cross paths with can’t take away the magic on that morning of December 25^th each year. It’s all worth every second, and I love it!

Well, why the heck not?

I forgive.  It’s what I do.  I also give second chances (sometimes three and four).  It’s who I am.  I believe in people and if anyone thinks that makes me weak, that’s okay.  Being able to forgive others and have faith in others puts a little more love and peace in my heart.  It’s me that I am more concerned with, not them - the ones who have hurt me.  Carrying around resentment like a cross on my back does nada for me. I mean, really, who wants to RSVP to a pity party?  When others hurt me, it’s their burden to carry, not mine.  After all, the mistake falls somewhere on their choices.  I have nothing to do with that. Forgiveness and Faith help me to accept the past and prepare for the future.  In the meantime, I’ll work on the act of forgiving myself.  (I, too, deserve second chances.)