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Krrobi

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Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Kim Sisto Robinson

~I watch the ripples change their size
but never leave the stream
of warm impermanence and
so the days float through my eyes

Ca-ch-ch-ch-Changes.

~~Davie Bowie/Changes

I don’t know about you, but I feel a bit sad when the tulips begin sagging like a bunch of old women, when petals fall to soil. The blood red silks tumbling to the ground as if sighing, “It is finished.”  And I know it’s not really about the tulips, it’s about endings, loss, change.

I’m not good with change.  Hell, I can’t even change my hair style (if you can call it a style).  Yeah, it’s been the same since the 80s if you want the truth.  My new hair dresser, Eric, sort of gasped the first time he saw me.  I heard a quick inhale and exhale, so he couldn’t deny it.  “Oh, giiirl, he said, “You need to get out of Miami Vice into Lipstick Jungle.”  He stood looking at me in the mirror.  “Todaaay,” he added. 

 I take the same route to work every morning.  I mean, I wouldn’t dream of taking

My sister suggested she should host Christmas Eve this year.  I’m like, “Well, I don’t think so, cause I’ve had it the last ten years, and the meals already planned out.”  And anyhow, does she have a problem with that?  Seriously, I have the recipes for my hors d'oeuvres, which I’ve already downloaded off of Rachel Ray’s web site: crab artichoke dip, baked oysters drenched in garlic, and something else with spinach; I can’t remember.  I love my sister to death, but I’m thinking, the nerve. 

Back to Eric; whom I’m in love with even though he’s five feet tall and gay. Eric says, “Now don’t you dare wash that head when you get home.  The chemicals need to rest, Miss Thang, so since I’ve washed and styled the 80s out, pleeeease don’t bring it back!” Now, this is a demanding man.  He glares inside me with those baby browns, as if he already knows what I’m going to do.

I’m this way with books, too.  I’m amazed I haven’t been excommunicated from my book club. We’ve been together nine years, and I’ve probably read half the books, because I only take pleasure in a certain genre. For example, classics like Lolita, East of Eden, To Kill a Mockingbird, Stones from the River.  My heart actually aches reading the words; Oh, the delicious words dripping inside my mind, body, pores.

Even music.  My kids finally hid my Madonna CD, which I blasted, and I mean blasted, while doing house work or on the way to soccer games.  They were incredibly embarrassed when friends were in the car, because I’d sing along at full volume with the material girl:

I'm crazy for you
Touch me once and you'll know it's true
I never wanted anyone like this
It's all brand new, you'll feel it in my kiss
I'm crazy for you, crazy for you

Anyhow, the tulips are long gone; their bleeding tongues disappeared and melted with spring, with lilacs, with that part of me that anticipates their arrival.  But I know they’ll be back…they always come back.

Eric was right about my hair.  I washed it that same day. All $140 dollars of chemicals whirled down the drain like the shower scene from Psycho. Don’t you dare tell him, or he’ll discipline me severely, and even though he’s small, h could kick my ass. 

 There are some things I want to keep forever; some things I can’t let go of…  Like the deep scarlett of tulips, like spring, like Christmas eve, like delicious words, and………. 

My 80’s Hair Style!