Cocoa Beach - beachside

After a stroll through downtown Cocoa Beach, we took L to a nearby park with beach access so he could burn off some energy. It threatened to rain, but thankfully it didn't. Here are some scenes from the beach:

Downtown Cocoa Beach

Wednesday, we took a short road trip to downtown Cocoa Beach, a quaint beach town that made us reminisce of our single, younger days. A few things that caught my attention were the tatoo parlors on every street corner and the strip clubs that seemed too many for a beach town of that size. And to counteact the strip clubs, churches surrounded the downtown area, both on the outskirts and within the town. The small stores were iconic of a beach town and many walls were decorated with murals of jazzy scenes. Here are a few pics I took:

First Baptist Church - it sits to the south of downtown Cocoa Beach.

Solitude’s Company

He lounges next to me at breakfast as I stare at
a glass bowl of cinnamon raisin oatmeal.
He’s waiting for the mathematical equation of
hunger plus thirst divided by sleep
equaling congruent fragmentation of the brain
to surge into attack of my arterial passage,
leading the way, quietly, into a revolution of nerves.

At lunch I feel him breathing hard, laughing,
quite erotically, as the sun decides to overlook me
within a crowd of coffee addicted students.
He pokes his fleshy fingers at me, crossing my eyes,
making me see all sides of the parallelogram,
until my vision ripples into three dimensions.

Dinner at eight thirty, Solitude becomes three
irrational and compulsive characters:
my guests of honor. Wise men traveling from
the corners of his imagination, I become
their hostess and entertainer. He thrusts
the threads of creativity into captivity.

I try to leave him, but he follows
attached to the weight of my ankles,
the pressure of my chest, the blur of my eyes.
I ask him why he bothers stalking me,
we both know he’s not wanted here,
but he remains silent, tapping his toes.

When We Were Young in South Beach

We skimmed through the newspaper
for the Magic City’s night charms,
then renounced sleep
because creases on our skin did not
own us, and tomorrow
was still an abstraction.

Sleepily, we doused ourselves
with Starbucks Sumatra coffee, extra bold,
until the last musing of sleep was gone,
then dressed in our evening’s best
ready for El Grupo Niche and Jay-Z
to move us, like melting wax.

We skipped lunch to make room
for dinner at Joe’s, where
we filled our stomachs with
crab claws and Cole slaw
and our wallets were emptied
of Jackson and Grant.

Arm in arm we flirted
through the discolored sidewalks
of Ocean Drive, passing blurred faces
staring at us from the sanctuary of
their dinner tables. Lobster tails, churrasco
and rice pilaf decorated their plates.

We forgot the meanings of
no, can’t, won’t,
refusing to employ double negatives
and preferring to stick with
si, siempre, of course,
like El Zorro and Superwoman.

En route to Washington Ave,
we passed aspiring musicians
in crazed street corners
crooning off-beat one-hit-horrors
fit for an American Idol stage
and Simon Cowell.

We ignored the groans of our joints,
the headaches of neon and bass,
then threw our heads back and
consumed Nyquil with gin.
We ran through the sand
and laughed at the moon.

Another trip to Satellite Beach

I am a self-proclaimed mountain-girl, but lately, the beach has brought in a certain allure that I can't help but wonder if maybe there's part of a beach gal hiding in there. With hubby's new days off, and with me being off in the summer for the first time since I was an awkard teenager, we've been able to really enjoy being outdoors - when it's not raining, of course. Thanks to wonderful family, we've been able to visit Satellite Beach twice this month! The weather has been just right: slightly breezy, warm and humid but not overwhelmingly so, and rain that has made it's debut just at the right moments - when we're inside! This pic was on the day we got there. The drive up had been spectacular, and once there, we took a quick walk on the beach, only to scurry on inside because of the storm approaching from the west.

I'll update with some more snipets and pics in upcoming posts. These will include day drips to Cocoa Beach and Historic Downtown Melbourne. Stay tuned! :)

Look who popped in this afternoon

After the rain cleared up, we took a stroll in our backyard. It was the aftermath of rain: lemon yellow and black spotted butterflies made their rounds through the bushes and trees, ants emerged from crevices on the broken cement, and lizards came out of their respective shelters to see what the options were for dinner. This particular one is Laura the Lizard. She lives alongside Lorenzo the lizard in our small decorative fireplace. There's a lone piece of "wood" under which, at various times of the day, one can find them lounging around. Laura is the smaller of the two, as you can see in the picture below. Lorenzo is a larger lizard, who looks as if he's had one-too-many insects to eat. Lorenzo is usually not keen on human attention, but Laura curiously watched me approach her, camera in hand. She allowed me to approach enough to get some close-ups using the camera's close-up mode, and I only wish I'd taken more advantage of that allowance.

Where I Want to Be

The day creeps by as I wait for night to get here. The morning has seen torrential rains, with the continuous drumming of the drops on the roof lulling us into a hypnotic sleep. The sky outside so dark that we are confused as to whether it really is morning, although our trusty digital clock screams in neon green: 10:34 am. I'm silently thankful, though, that the rain is now, and not at 10:34 pm because then that would mean I would have to open the gates to our two close-to-a-hundred-pound dogs (who I secretly think sported feathers and a beak in another life) so they can join us upstairs, having the clackity-clack of their nails on our pergo wood floors provide the beat to the air purifier's purring and the rain's drumming. Right now, Baxter sits close to our feet as the rain is joined by thunder and lightening, his hind legs trembling. Buffy doesn't mind as much, although if Baxter gets started enough, she is right there following his example. Great. So, I'm sitting here, going through my pictures, and found the one place I'd love to be right now:

I can just see myself under that umbrella, basking in the sun's warm rays, taking in all that vitamin D (with protection of course) that we usually lack because we're stuck indoors between sterile walls. Next week, I will be there!

It's cleared up somewhat now; the clouds have parted and the soft breeze is making our bougainvillea and backyard trees dance to its rhythm. I see blue again, mingling with the puffs of cotton that decorate the sky. There's also light again, which means I can go back to saving on electricity and using good ol' mother nature.

Impromptu #1 - Dogs

I grew up with dogs - mutts always. The first one I remember was Pirula. She was a white mutt, with curly, creamy hair that covered her entire body. I had her since she was a puppy, small enough to fit within the empty space between my four-year-old palms. I have pictures of me in my pink Barbie tricycle, carrying Pirula in the back compartment as if she were just another luggage item in my young traveler's mind. Other pictures show a more grown-up Pirula licking my father's feet as he lay on the couch, recovering from his broken fingers that had been caught in a garage door.

After that I remember Princess, my black, shiny coated Labrador mutt. She has short, straight black hair and a skinny tale. She ran with me in the backyard of my Westchester home, and became part of my make-believe games. She was there by my side whenever I had to clean up in the backyard - there's a picture of me at about seven years old, wearing a mustard yellow and black handkerchief on my hair, picking up what I can only imagine to be dog excrements from the recently cut grass. Princess is right there beside me as if guarding me, protecting me, as if she sensed that I needed that extra companion. She accompanied me when I wanted to lay on our cream and brown lawn chairs to catch some rays of sun - she lay curled in a small, black ball, reflecting the sunlight off her coat.

Then there was Lucky. I have never had a dog so hyper, although there are pictures of me in my early years with an exact duplicate of Lucky. I don't remember that one, but I remember Lucky's energy that transferred some of the recklessness to my small child's body. I had a long, colorful Colombian skirt, del traje tipico, that someone had brought for me, but it was much too big - an adult size. I loved to play dress up with it, but soon, I discovered that it could serve as a circus act with Lucky. Playfully, I would slither the rust-colored skirt in front of Lucky who would then gleefully bite at it, clenching his teeth over the soft cotton fabric, until I began swinging the skirt, and the attached Lucky, around and around until the imaginary crowed roared with laughter at the sight of Lucky the Flying Dog! He was the last dog I had while I was still living in that Westchester home.

After that we moved to an apartment, so it was no more dogs for me - until we moved temporarily to a small townhome in another section of town. That's when my two "little" cousins, C + J, decided to give me a little black blur that they named Tomate. I don't think that ended up his real name, but it's the only one I remember. Tomate came to us at a time we were renting, and we never informed the owner of our newest acquisition. He was a feisty puppy, with energy slightly lower than Lucky's, but a lovable one nonetheless. Then, one day, our landlady found out about Tomate, and we had to part ways with him.

All the dogs of my childhood had to be given up. I never had to go through the death of a dog because they were never around long enough. Most of the times, they had to be given up because we moved; but sometimes, they just had to be given up because. I wonder many times what happened to them - comforters of my childhood, friends in my need of time (which, as a child with an over-active imagination and strict parents, they're many!).

Matheson Hammock Park

Some pics of Matheson Hammock Park taken by hubby and me!

Work in progress - While You Dream

This is a poem I'm working on. It's a second draft now, but it's still a work in progress.

While You Dream – 05/12/2009

Your slumber is envious
a sleep so deep that you miss the
barking of Buffy and Baxter –
the two Labrador mutts
you’ve named sister, and brother,
and after whom you’ve modeled
many of your dinner table behaviors.
You’ve been in the same position
since we rocked you to sleep –
arms lifted over your head, one
slightly curled above as if
sheltering you from the night’s
unknowns.

You used to startle in your sleep
when you were days and weeks old
not the months and years you are now.
Without preamble you would strike
your coveted pose, lifting your arms
fiercely at a ninety degree angle
from your miniature body, and then
with a quiver, you would slowly lower them,
only to repeat the gesture a few more times –
that salute of life; a reflex, the doctors said,
and sure enough, you outgrew the
dancing poses and army salutes,
and took instead to sleeping twelve hours
while visiting all corners of your crib, in
a serene slumber.

You stir quietly,
a slight movement
of your Thomas the Train pajamas
as you inhale deeply –
a sigh perhaps as you dream
of luscious, creamy whole milk,
or your tete, sweet comfort,
or maybe your Mickey Mouse peluche
of whom you have four replicas,
one for each room of the house.
Or perhaps you’re dreaming of mama
and dada.

We hug when daddy comes home from work,
uniform wrinkled and eyes telling
of misfortunes and atrocities I thank God
you’re still too young to know about.
We hug a group hug –a playful
hug that intertwines our arms so that
we’re no longer solitary natives
within the cement walls of what we call home,
but a family, and we fall laughing
and shedding the skins of disappointments
and corruption, basking instead in the comforts
of innocence.

But now there’s no laughing,
just a slight pull of your lips,
half hidden
behind your tete –
Tough Guy
Mute Button
Ladies Man –
and I pray every night for you,
for your eyes that look so much
like my father’s – dark
serious ovals that portray a wisdom
you’ve yet to live but seem to already know –
his wisdom.
You size everything and everyone
with those eyes –
open them wide as you analyze
what you can’t understand, or
silently watch the scenes unfold
as if you knew what the outcome
would be before the curtain fell.
You remind me of my father,
your grandfather, who you only met
for the first five and a half months
of your life.

Will you be like him –
an intellect whose thirst for water,
knowledge and language
tormented him every night, and at every nap?
A musician who taught himself
the keys of the organ and to write music,
who composed a song for his only daughter
saturated with prayers for her ninth birthday?
A philosopher with a fighter’s temper
and stubbornness
who refused to retreat or speak
even when entreated?
He is more a part of you
than you realize now. Someday you’ll know,
or perhaps, you already do but are
keeping it a secret from me as you
breath to the rhythms of your lullaby CD
that plays
in the background –

Wee Willie Winkie runs through the town
Upstairs and downstairs in his nightgown.

The humidifier competes for your attention
a continuous humming that sometimes soothes
sometimes infuriates,
a seemingly never-ending waterfall of noise –
white noise.

Give babies white noise to help them sleep.

Yes, white noise. But why not scarlet noise,
something more colorful to bring
dreams of rainbows
and unicorns.
But no, white noise to help you sleep.
It does, but I wonder what you dream.
You sigh again as if you knew
I was watching you, perched
on the rails of your Babi Italia Pinehurst crib
in espresso,
staring at your eyelashes, your ears,
your nose.

When my cousin's daughter was born
his wife counted her
fingers and toes
and tongue.
Your tongue remains slightly
visible behind your tete
that is now escaping your
faintly open mouth, as if
it were playing peek-a-boo
with the moon.

You stretch, and moan, and then turn
to your left, your back now to me,
bidding me good night, and
you keep on dreaming
while I watch you grow into a man.

© 2009 A.P.A.