The Rock Star, The Poet, The Dead Past, And Me

Woke up this morning to find that my wonderful friend Courtney Love had lost her phone; that the NY Times columnist Frank Bruni found it; and that his assistant, the lovely Isabella Moschen, saw my name in Courtney's phone, remembered I had dated her uncle, remembered I was a "celebrity psychic"(I love that phrase- it makes me want to run right out and purchase red flocked wallpaper) -and-voila!-mystery solved.

Courtney gets her phone back, Frank Bruni gets to be a hero (he already IS my hero: go read "Born Round"), and Isabella and I, who were bit players in the New York Magazine piece that Joe Coscarelli wrote for his "Intelligencer" column all of this celllphone superstar serendipity- found ourselves blinking in the unexpected spotlight when the whole thing went viral. Not just viral..by the end of the day, the piece had gone QUANTUM. Courtney Love's cellphone! Found by a respected New York Times columnist! SWho was obviously really pleased, in a sweet, even slightly starstruck way!
 It's fun, and as evanescent as the dew on a kitten's whiskers for those of us who AREN'T Courtney, so us non rock stars shan't take it too  tseriously..but still,honestly, FUN. (Grazie, Universe!)
Meanwhile, I got one jillion hits on my Facebook page, with people asking how and why Courtney Love had me on her phone. So:

Here's the delightful and- for those of you who only believe what you read in the media, and don't have the pleasure of knowing the Lady herself- probably rather surprising backstory.
For example, would you have thought that the world's most famous diva, would have befriended a non famous chick, because of shared interests in 19th century poetry and Buddhism?
-Nope, didn't think so. Read on, my little lily blossoms...read on!

Courtney Love and I met 5 or 6 years ago, when my then-fiance was directing a play in Santa Monica. Now, many people direct plays, and some direct them in Santa Monica, but very few of the aforesaid worshippers at the altar of Thalia (who is, I hope, Goddess of the Theater- I would google it, but I can't be arsed, frankly)- have the good fortune of having discovered a riveting young actor named Sawyer Avery to star in it. Sawyer Avery played a high school kid who had an unfortunate dislike for his high school classmates, and an even more unfortunate affinity for guns. And Sawyer Avery could ACT. I don't mean "act pretty well for a 16 year old." I mean: he could seriously and indubitably act his intense, charismatic, 16 year old James Dean-ish butt off. Sawyer's father is also a hugely famous Hollywood genius, which is possibly why Oliver Stone and Courtney Love showed up to see my then-fiance's play, as said exfiance was friends with Oliver, and had worked quite successfully with him, in the past. But they stayed to see Sawyer. (Also, the exfiance was terrific, and the play was quite wellwritten.) 
Courtney and Oliver made quite an entrance..they walked ACROSS the stage (which was level with the floor, so it was actually completely understandable)..but it WAS after the play had STARTED, so frankly, it was kind of seriously badass. 
Also, Courtney's reputation at the time did not prepare me for the shock of how genuinely beautiful she is. -And this isn't a "friend of a star/must kiss ass" insincere compliment: I grew up around a ton of famous folks, and it's nice, but not compelling, the fame thing...so when I say she is genuinely, Carol- Lombard-beautiful in person, I mean just that. Flawless skin, huge green eyes, tall, with the elongated, almost stylized, slender figure of a 1940s model: wide shoulders, narrow hips, long legs. Anyway, the show went well, and was so entertaining that people actually managed to tear their eyes off the several seriously A List famous folk in the audience, for minutes at a time. -What was also interesting to me, sitting in the audience, was that, although there were people in that audience who were  so famous the folks in the adjoining seats actually physically burst into flame? It was La Love that every single person, was talking about, staring at, and pointing to. Such is the mystery of charisma.

Later, at the beginning of the seriously VIP afterparty, Courtney and I caught each other's eye, and we each,respectively, made the same mental note: "hmm, that seems like someone I'd get along with. Don't know why." -and then, we each  kept walking. Much later on, she mentioned that she'd liked me partially because I wasn't that young, wasn't that skinny, was idiosyncratically sttractive but not plastic surgery gorgeous...and my guy was a serious, goldplated catch...so what, she had wondered at the time,was UP with that? Could it be that, in LA, someone actually loved someone else for her MIND?  [Note: ( -Actually, he kinda did, and, as in most doomed relationships, we had a really, really good time-until we really, really didn't. -Anyway..)
She also made a mental note that my beyond Adonis boyfriend, might have a lot more substance than one suspected, if he could both write and star in a good play, AND have enough gravitas to not have the Young Trampy Girlfriend.

Courtney and I were somehow standing back to back at the party, in the middle of a scrum so tight that no one could move, or even figure out HOW to move. Then I felt someone tap me on the shoulder, in a friendly, impatient way. I turned my head--all that COULD be turned, in that claustrophobic party mob- and saw Courtney, close up as smooth faced as the dream of na porcelain doll. She was talking to someone, and also seemed to be snapping her fingers in a futile effort to remember something. Maybe that girl I saw before might know, know, was apparently her decisive thought, because her next move was to say to me,"Hey. What was the name of that poet? You know--19th century, English, wanted to be Shelley, died in an attic of arsenic at 18, killed himself, you know...Thomas something...Thomas, uh..."

"Thomas Chatterton," I supplied. "Killed himself over a plagiarism fraud, 1824." 

"Right! Right! Thanks..." she said, and turned back to her friend.

How, and why, she was talking about Thomas Chatterton - a poet even more obscure than he was deceased, which was saying something- at a party in Los Angeles- the world's MOST ahistorical city- was never explained. But it established a bond of sorts, and later that night we wound up talking enthusiasticallyfor a long time- we had shared passions for Buddhism, 1920s and 30's films, vintage couture, and scurrilous gossip. I was delighted to find that she had a mordant, dry, very British wit, and an eidetic memory...she could remember stuff thet Miss English Major here, had totally forgotten. In fact, she was really fucking smart. When at last the party wound to a close, and those of us who WEREN'T doing cocaine were starting to yawn (yup, neither she nor I partook- I have never seem her take drugs) she said " Great meeting you..Hey, I have an idea! Come chant with me..I'll have my driver pick you up at 2 tomorrow."
I limped home, my Louboutins having won their fight with my now warped-into-submission toes, and thought, "well, that was cool.Who knew? Live and learn."
[Note: I made a mental note, from that night on, to regard everything I read in entertainment media, as "guilty until proven innocent"..in other words, I stopped being a credulous consumer of gossip.-Except the British gossip mags, which are awesomely awesome and who cares if they're true?]

Dawn broke. And tomorrow came and went, but no driver, so I figured, "Well, that woulda been fun, but..oh well."

Went to sleep and, at 2 AM, the phone rang.

"Errrroo?" I answered..I am not a girl who wakes up easily.

"Miss Lyons? This is Courtney's driver...I'm here to take you to the Chateau."

"Roo..err..hey, what?? It's 2 AM!"

"That's right. She asked you if two was okay."

"Darlin, I must get my beauty sleep. Let's try again later," I said...and fell asleep before my head hit the pillow.

So the next day I went to see her at the Chateau Marmont. To be continued....

xoxoxox

A Wimbledon Pome, or, U.S Open Your Heart, Baby!

Though tennis I know nothing of;

We ALL know "nothing" equals "love";

And all the sports fans know this call:

Love equals nothing much at all.

While poets tell us there's no cost:

It's"better" to "have loved and lost"-

The sportsfans tell you different, hon:

It's better to have loved- and WON.

Sportsfans and poets all agree

That love's a bigass mystery:

If love's a game, as seems to be?

-The heart's a crooked referee.

So though one loved and lost, it's true,

And played no games at all with you:

She's cut out sobbing in her gin-

Cuz next time? She will play- to WIN.

Now, As It Is

Love is not only the answer- it's also the question.

This morning began with a ritual that's been in place since my 83 year old mother got home from the hospital: I gently shake her awake, bring her some water with lemon and mint and ice cubes, and start doling out a seemingly endless list of pills, while making cheerful, meaningless conversation in order to help both of us ease into consciousness.

"I saw a fox this morning, Mom, in the backyard . -No, we only take that pill at night, take the pink pill instead.-Why do foxes always look mildly guilty? -Ooops, the mint is stuck inside the straw, that's why you're having trouble. Here, lift your head up a little. -Okay, fixed it.- There was a cardinal yelling at the fox, from a tree nearby. You know the way cardinals do...it's funny how most birds sing, but cardinals yell. Bluejays scream, robins chirp, cardinals yell. Cardinals all seem like they're from Brooklyn.-Okay, you ready for your tea?"

These days, there is a hospital bed in the living room. There is a walker, which has broken but we can't yet afford to fix it;  and a wheelchair, and a chair set up as an impromptu nightstand, big enough for a phone and three antique bracelets, and otherwise overflowing with pills...there are two other bags filled with pills, and a grownup version of a sippee cup nearby, filled with water and mint and a straw. There is a radio that always plays NPR; there is a copy of "The New York Review of Books", but it's three months old, because her cataracts make it hard to read these days. There are sculptures from long ago travels to the Pacific Northwest; there are paintings shining on the walls, gifts of artist friends; there are photos of the grandchildren and great grandchildren, the kids whom she is not exactly not allowed to see, but not exactly not. My brother has never explained why he stopped loving her, three years ago. Mom no longer asks. She is gallant and optimistic and loving and utterly heartbroken, a heartbreak made worse by bafflement...isn't losing your husband supposed to make your kids be nicer to you? But we don't talk about it anymore. I hear her cry at night, and go hold her hand. There is no explanation, and no resolution, and what can not be fixed must be endured.

 Mom's house is making the transition from being a home, to being a history: and my job here, is to make sure, as she approaches a similar transition, that she does not have a stranger at her bedside.

In an adult's life, this kind of time out of time that I get to have right now, usually signals a major transition in both lives. In my own life, it is a moment when I get to take a deep breath after the end of a three year roller coaster ride. It is a moment to mourn lost deeply held and never before even questioned assumptions  of what family is, or "should" be. It is a also chance to actually learn lessons, really learn them, cell deep and forever. Learning involves a combination of brokenness and surrender, and who wants to feel broken, who wants to surrender?  But since all opposites actually mirror each other, getting broken can also mean getting made whole. Surrender can lead to a whole new kind of power. Mostly, what happens in circumstances that are worse than one expects, is that one learns to listen.

 One lesson is that I have to be the family, I want to have. If that makes sense. Another lesson is that, yes, we are each alone in this body,  this nautilus shell that makes the noise of the ocean, which is a fanciful way of saying we are all alone..and never, never alone. What I'm learning is that making mistakes doesn't make you a bad person, but repeating mistakes does make you an ineffectual one...learning to face facts without being defeated by them, seems to be a useful thing. Learning that forgiveness and love, really are more important than "being right" and "keeping track". Not for abstract moral reasons, but because it works better. It just works. Better. 

Families fall apart over money, and old resentments dressed up in new clothes, and who's better, who's wrong, who's worthy, who has given more, who taken too much...and all we're looking for,really, is love and affirmation. I have watched "good" people make an old woman miserable in the name of "what's best for her". I have watched "bad" people continue to do sorta bad things...but make the old woman feel happy and safe and cared for. And i don't for the life of me know, which camp I fall into. Or care. What I care about is the happiness or lack thereof, in the life of the people I love.

Because what I'm learning is that love is a verb. In the same way that God can be Unconditional Love in one person's usage, and in another person's usage, the same God can be: a lucky charm, a big brother who will kick your unrighteous ass, and a reason to hate the same folks they seem to believe S/He "made". None of this makes sense.

Anyway, when nothing you thought you knew makes sense anymore, what does make sense is just doing what's in front of you.
What makes sense, is doing what's in front of me. Doing the dishes; making the oatmeal with dried cranberries that Mom finds tasty and will therefore actually eat; doing the laundry; trying to sort out my finances, her finances, the cat's finances...give me a finance and i will leap into action. My financial action usually consists of staring uncomprehendingly at a statement; entering things into Quickbook; accidentally erasing said things from Quickbook; calling the insurance company/financial institution/ credit card company and attempting to explain to a seemingly endless array of voicemail options and uninterested people in foreign lands, why they are wrong and can I have my money back now, please?

Then one makes lunch. Often for the next few days. It's best to do ALL the cooking at once, and freeze whatever you think you won't need immediately. You will be wrong- always- about how much you need of what and when, because invalids have tetchy appetites, and today's Turkey Meatloaf Which Is Exactly Right and Gets Eaten With Happy Noises, is tomorrow's Thing That Is Not Exactly Sneered at But Not Exactly Not. 

Then one cleans up, and talks encouragingly, and tries to find a film on the computer that will soothe and stimulate in exactly the right balance. Old movies are best. I'vefound that British films from the 40s, are ideal. Most ideal are what used to be called "omnibus" movies...which, counterintuitively, are NOT films about omnibuses, but films like "Dead of Night" of "Quartet", that are several short films under one thematic umbrella.That way, a smart older person can watch something smart, but not have to feel embarrassed about getting drowsy partway though. 

Mother actually helps enormously with my new book: brilliant editing suggestions, and the kind of Vestigial Mom Authority that gets my bum into the seat to write, when nothing else will. So that is part of the afternoon, as well. 

Then one makes dinner.

And one makes conversation to go with the dinner.

And one makes the best of what one has, both dinner and conversationwise. We have cobbled a very nice dinner out of a chicken carcase, some frozen corn, and matzoh balls; and conjured a matching conversation about the history of "end of the world" scares and cults {Millerites, anybody?], out of my scraps of remembered historical anecdotes and Mother's partially remembered but potentially enormous fund of knowledge, from her years as an Ivy League history professor. Mother pops in and out of lucidity, but since her lucidity, when present, borders on actual genius, it's worth the wait.

And then one does the dishes, and listens for Mother's voice, and sweeps and mops, and hears the voice and goes in to count the pills, and arrange the pillows, and we sing "Stardust" together and she's asleep, mouth open, by the second verse, and i am just so fucking grateful to be here.

Because it's not perfect, or pretty, or even, sometimes, bearable. But I've learned more about the look of love, lately, than I knew before. And by the look of love, I don't mean the dreamy Dusty Springfield song. I mean the act of being each other's flawed but willing witnesses. Love may make vile things precious, but it doesn't make vile things pretty, and it doesn't make anything perfect. Quite the opposite. Quite, quite the reverse.

Love makes lack of perfection the point. Love makes doing the gristly dishes an irritating privilege. Love is not abstract...love is annoyingly concrete, brilliantly ugly, and love, in every way?

Is a verb.

And a question.

And an answer,

And finally?

A reason that you can not argue with.

Off to do the dishes, again. I wish they'd stay done. But I guess the point is, I hope they keep getting dirty. If you see what I mean.

Maybe all we can do in the end, is what's right. Maybe if I do what is right, the phone will ring and my brother will say "Can I talk to Mom?" Maybe if one just tries a little more every day; loves just a little more than the day before, forgives just a little more than 12 hours ago, catches one's self when one falls into old patterns of anger, or entitlement, or selfishness...maybe one day you wake up and the "good" has finally pushed out the "bad".

"Darling", Mom calls out excitedly from the next room. "Come in here quickly! I just noticed that the dogwood tree has tiny green shoots on it already! Look at that! Spring will be here before you know it! Won't that be nice. I can't wait to see the snowdrops again."

I am making Mom tea, now.  I can see  through the huge kitchen window, that both a cardinal and a heavily pregnant  red fox are framed against the white snow,both motionless for this minute, vivid red against the sterile, seemingly hopeless white landscape. In a minute, the cardinal will fly away and the fox seek shelter against the coming evening and the steadily mounting snow.
And?
In two weeks or three, there will be green shoots of snowdrops, where the snow is now. The momma fox will be nursing her tiny red pups. The dogwood's green shoots will be turning into white flowers with vivid orange crosses in the middle. The world will once again be a chorus of kept promises. The snow will be a memory.

And maybe, this time? The phone will ring, and my Mom will join the rank and chorus of those who get to come back to life, to hope and to promises unbroken, in the springtime.

Meanwhile, my other brother and his wife are driving through the snow to be here tomorrow. Meanwhile, tonight, I take in the tea.

With cookies.

Happy Almost Spring.

love, pl

Valentine's Day Is Approaching. For God's Sake, Hide Me, Someone!

Or,

The Lilies Of The Field Are Trying To Tell You Something

Did you know that, on Valentine's Day,  if your dreamboat 
hands you a bouquet of purple irises, he or she is actually saying: "I  anxiously await your [sexual] favors"?*
                         ( *Author's Note: Well, with any luck.)

Or that, hidden in that lovely collection of fragrant pink dahlias, is a a subtext that actually warns of imminent betrayal and sexual degradation?** 
                                     (** Author's Note: Agatha Christie says this is what "Dahlia"  means,.Other sources say it's actually what "evergreens" mean, but I flatout refuse to believe all that about my Christmas tree.)

-Of course you didn't, because: a): You're not a big ol' crazypants, and, 2): It is no longer circa 1850-1890, which is when the "Language of Flowers" was an accepted way to communicate your secret feelings to your loved one in floral code. In Victorian England, every flower in a bouquet, had a very specific meaning: that tradition, though long forgotten, still resonates on some level. Case in point: we give red roses almost exclusively these days, to be on the safe side: red roses, in the Language of Flowers, mean "I am romantically in love with you, although this floral arrangement does not actually  constitute a legally binding agreement." And the reason you have never offered your fiancé/e a selection of  lobelias, lime blossom and houseleeks? -Is because you somehow knew you would be accusing her of, respectively, "fornication; malevolence; and poor domestic economy."(And frankly? You'd be right. Sorry you had to find out this way, man.)

So here is a selection of the Language of the Flowers, circa 1885, and then the Language of the Flowers, circa 2016.

Happy Valentine's Day! 

love, Peri 

Language Of The Flowers, 1885 version

1) Camellia: I live in gratitude of your perfected loveliness!

2) Chrysanthemum: I admire your cheerfulness through adversity.

3) Damask Rose: I worship your brilliant complexion.

4) Fuschia: The ambition of my love thus plagues myself. 
                                                 [Author's note: "Huh?"]

5) Peach/or Peach Blossom: Your qualities, like your charms, are unequalled.

6) White Rosebud: You are too young to understand love.
                                             [Author's Note:"I get this one a LOT."]


Okay. Moving right along:

 The Language of the Flowers, 2016 Version:

1) Dandelions: You're okay, considering. I guess.

2) Poppies: I love you, but not more than I love prescription medications.

3) Carnations:My God, you're beautiful. My God, I'm cheap.

4) Rare Orchids: Aren't these exquisite? I'm sleeping with your sister.

5) Daffodils: Your optimism is touching. If delusional.

6) Asters: These are asters. -No, that's it, that's the message. Sorry.

7) Peach colored sunset roses: Your skin is like a flower petal at sunrise, and I think i might be gay.

8) Red roses: I think you're swell, I think you're aces, and I think it's 1947.

To sum up? Flowers are a beautiful means of communication, wherein you can totally say stuff you mean, and not have to cop to it. The Victorians may have had their flaws, but they have a lot to teach us still. Especially in the area of being completely passive-aggressive and yet, still decorative as hell.

love,Peri

Monogram Memories: A Christmas, Um, Thing. [Greatest Hits]

This time,some years ago,your humble correspondent was working at the Louis Vuitton Flagship Store. Here are some notes from that time: my Last Days Of Retail.
*************************
If you are a store, and you're French (which I'm going to assume you, dear reader, are not), here is how you assert your Frenchness during the Christmas retail season:

1) Leave your front doors open when it's 22 degrees out, ensuring that people shopping for $1600 handbags can see their own breath as they utter the words "I'll t-t-t-take it".
Expecting to be warm indoors during a luxury shopping experience is simply not chic. One must suffer for beauty. Also? We don't like you. Or care. And your hair is funny.

2) Refuse to play Christmas music. Instead, play depressing emo girls wailing about how their lovers have left them and it's probably their own fault, but if said lover doesn't return to make thm miserable again, they will probably either take pills or continue wailing. Or both. "Rudolph the RedNose Reindeer" is a bourgouis construct, and has been denounced by LeviStrauss in his famous tract "The Deconstruction of Rudolf de la Nez Rouge"., in which reindeer are proven to be a failed neo-Marxist syllogism.Parce-que: Christmas music at Christmas is so...predictable.

3) Refuse to have sales. Sneer openly at those customers who ask. Sneer openly at customers who don't ask, for their lack of courage. Sneer openly at anyone who happens to be walking by and within sneering distance. Nous sneerairons.

4) We spit on the concept of Christmas decorations. Instead, we have a conceptual artist who walks around the store before it's open and murmurs the single word "holly". So spare. So simple. So chic.

5) Your hair is funny and your shoes are a laughable relic of the former life you have now outgrown. Your children are sad and your wife has a lover. Do not ask me what is the price of this purse. You can not purchase back the strayed affection of your spouse, who is sleeping with a german art student who moonlights as a garbage man in order to impress his marxist, much younger other girlfriend, with a $420 beach towel. Do not try, either to do the first thing I suggested or to understand the structure of this sentence. Pah- I spit on conventional sentence structure.

There ya go. If you ever want to be a huge, French, luxury retail store at Christmas, you now know everything you ned to be a huge success with people who would not want to belong to any club that would have them as a member. I.e., all of humanity.

What Is The Journey But Our View

 (Note: The 18th Century Russian Empress Catherine The Great, wanted to take a tour of Russia.  In order to keep her happily assured that everything in Russia was absolutely FINE- which it most assuredly was NOT--her lover and prime minister, Potemkin, erected an astonishing series of village facades , for Catherine to ride past. She was happily fooled, and Potemkin kept his power. The villages were burned as soon as she passed.)

What Is The Journey But Our View  (lyrics)            Peri Lyons   c 2012 ASCAP

There was a Russian Empress

Who said she had to see

What was going on

With her Russian Peasantry

So: She rode out in state for a year and a day

And her minister Potemkin rode ahead.

Potemkin rode ahead... to build

The fronts of houses -but not the houses

The fronts of villages -but no villages

He hired handsome peasants to stand outside

and Catherine

Was satisfied

When Catherine the Great looked at the view

She saw what Potemkin intended her to

No trouble, no starvation and no poverty

Potemkin Villages as far as she could see

Potemkin rode ahead to build

The fronts of houses but not the houses

The fronts of villages but no villages

He hired handsome peasants to stand outside

and Catherine

Was satisfied

And Catherine’s sleep was untroubled

And Catherine’s mind was untroubled

 I fear we are too untroubled

in our complacency

Potemkin Villages are all that we will see

when Catherine the Great rode past and on her way

Potemkin Villages were burned down the same day

That lying architecture, had to go away

No one could make a home there anyway

Potemkin rode behind to burn

The fronts of houses- burned like houses

The fronts of village-s burned like villages

The handsome peasants had already moved on

And Catherine

was long gone

I sing this song to say the burning hurts the same

The fake and the real all burn, with just as hot a flame

But this complacency is turning into shame

I did not see

The Potemkin Villages you put up just for me

My darling, you rode ahead to build

The fronts of houses but not our house

The fronts of villages but not our village

And everywhere you lied

and I

Was satisfied

And yes my sleep was untroubled

And yes my mind was untroubled

 I fear we’re all too untroubled

in our complacency

Potemkin Villages are all that we will see:

That heedless wreckage ,is our legacy.

Adam Cvijanovic’s Post-Natural History at Postmasters Gallery

Adam Cvijanovic’s Post-Natural History at Postmasters Gallery

Best show I have seen this year. Bar none.

Secrets of The Universe-REVEALED!

Secrets of The Universe

The Universe is very big, and very mysterious. There are some scientists, however, who claim it only looks mysterious because it's far away.  And because it's very very dark. These scientists claim that the Universe is not actually full of Mystery: that it's actually just full of Math, and is only pretending to be Mysterious, because it didn't get good grades in calculus.. They also claim that the Universe is five hundred thousand billion years old*, whereas the Universe claims to be 39.

As I am a professional mystic, the Universe has revealed some of its deepest, darkest secrets to me. Now, for the first time, The Universe's REAL secrets...REVEALED.

Here are a few of the Universe's most closely guarded secrets:

1) The Universe wet the bed until it was 5 million years old.

2) The Universe's favorite game is "Worlds With Friends".

3) Occasionally, the Universe, giggling madly, will spell out really dirty words across the sky, using leftover stars. So far? No one's noticed.

4) The Universe occasionally whispers, the following phrase to itself: "Hey--"I'm a ME-niverse!"

5) The Universe likes toast. But it's hard to get it delivered. More often than not, it arrives either stone cold ? or too far in the future, to eat.

6) The Universe thinks Saturn is, frankly, a little pompous. The rings? A little showy. A little too.."moderne". Yes...Saturn's up to something, the Universe thinks. -But what??

7) The Universe watches every TV show ever, all the time. It thinks 1950's game show host Bill Cullen is what every human looks like. It approves.

8) The Universe has many secrets. One time, it fell asleep and some galaxies went sideways. It put them back but The Universe really hopes the duct tape, holds. 

9) The Universe hums Mozart every Wednesday morning. It listens to NPR, but millions of years too late.  

10) The Universe knows your home address, and wants to send you brownies. But somehow? It never finds the time.

"Good nigh"t, says the Universe. "I have told you some secrets. Now turn off the Hubble for a day or two, so I can take a shower."

xoxo pl 2012

* The age of the Universe is another Mystery. I solved this one quite easily, by the simple expedient of Making It Up. -Shut up, it's Quantum.

                       

"Don't Be A Stranger" (lyrics)

"Don't Be A Stranger"

         

                                                   Lyrics: Peri Lyons  C.Juicyfruit Music/ASCAP 2012 all rights reserved

When we met- I don’t know why- you somehow felt like home.

You saw me to my soul, I saw.. Could I stand being known?

I couldn’t feel desire, back then, without some shallow "danger"...

But when I left you smiled again, and said : “Don’t be a stranger”

I wouldn’t kiss you, then, as well, ‘cause I desired another: 

Another shallow boy, who cared for no one but himself.

I truly thought love was a toy, and that there was no other

Way to love that was "exciting", so I put you on a shelf.

[chorus]

“Don’t be a stranger”-  

You meant more than I knew

I knew that I would never be a stranger- not to you- 

“Don’t be a stranger”

This was your gentle art

You taught me slowly not to be, a stranger to my heart

 [bridge:]

Just friends again for so long –then- I let myself be kissed

 And what I was so scared of,  I’m scared now I almost missed

My fear of boredom was the reason that I’d always flown:

Turns out the biggest bore of all,  was never being known

“Don’t be a stranger”

You meant more than I knew

You knew that I could never be a stranger- not to you- 

“Don’t be a stranger”

This was your gentle art:

You taught me slowly not to be

A stranger to my heart

We mostly are the opposite of how we play the world:

The ship that looks the fastest, never’s had its sails unfurled

The recipe that looks the best’s , the one’s that’s never made

The man who seems a player, is the man winds up played...

The love that travels deepest, is the love that never strayed;

The man who plays for keeps, is the one man who can’t be played;

The love who truly loves you, first can TRULY feel like danger;

The strangest and the strongest love is only when you’re not a stranger.

“Don’t be a stranger”

You meant more than I knew:

You knew that I would never be a stranger- not to you- 

“Don’t be a stranger”...

This was your gentle art:

You taught me slowly not to be

A stranger to my heart

(coda)

I’ll never be a stranger now, no matter where I roam

You showed me what freedom is 

when 

you gave 

this strange and stranger’s heart…

A home.

Peri Lyons  juicyfruit music/ASCAP 2012

Confessions of a Psychic: Excerpt

(Written in June, 2008. Copyright Peri Lyons, all rights reserved.)

Last night was kind of the exception to every rule I have as an intuitive.

Started the day off right by doing a (thank heavens, spot-on) reading for a nice new client, an attractive and articulate British artist. It was a relief to get verifiable facts right, as lately the psychic stuff had been feeling stuck. Now, for whatever reason, my mental clouds cleared and I couldn’t talk fast enough to convey the torrent of information I was getting. Artists are often much easier for me to read. I suppose that’s for a few reasons: one being that artists lead less conventional lives and therefore have fewer things to”hide”; another being that visual artists think in very vivid images, and those images often show up for me “verbatim”, if you will. In this reading, when I was telling the artist about his immediate family, I was trying to get his niece’s name. Immediately, I saw a picture of an English Garden.”Her name is ‘Garden?’” I asked, incredulous. He grinned.

I looked closer, and started naming everything I saw in the image in my mind. “Garden. Stone wall. Bunny rabbit. Oh…FERN!! Her name is Fern!”

He was laughing so hard he couldn’t speak for a moment, but when his mirth subsided a bit, he gasped out, "No, actually her name is Stonewall Bunny Rabbit.  It's an English thing. Yeah, her name is Fern"

The rest of the reading went well, although we were both confused when I got an image of his late father, in which the lanky English gentleman was wearing a white sleeveless sweater and white shorts. "No" he said decisively. "He never wore that."

A bit crestfallen, I said " well, okay, I can be wrong,I guess, but ...",  and bid him Adieu at the door of my shoebox-sized flat.  A postscript to this: a few days later, he rang me up."Peri, remember my dad showed up wearing the white sweater and shorts?  Well I rang. my mum, and was telling her about the reading, and she said " you idiot, your father, played tennis religiously for the last 20 years of his life.  That was his tennis outfit."

There was a slight pause "I had left home by then, but I should've remembered that."

"No worries," I reassured him. I was in no position to rebuke anyone for forgetfulness. The day before I had temporarily puzzled a friend when I asked her to close the, um, the, um “rectangular shaped wall thing."

She stared at me, then a light went on, and she exclaimed, "Oh, the DOOR!  You mean the DOOR!"

"Uh, yeah. Door. I knew that." I said touchily.

She looked at me with narrowed eyes. "Why can you remember the word ‘rectangular’ and not the word ‘door’? I'm just curious."

“I was testing you," I lied briskly. “Come on, let's go."

As the British artist left, my phone rang. It was a party entertainment agency.  Somehow they'd heard of me, gotten my number, and asked if I would do a last-minute ”Tarot reading" gig. Since I had decided that day that there was a new pair of rather spendy Louboutins that I needed in order to keep breathing voluntarily,  I said "Abso-LUTELY”, with a fervor that took the nice woman from the agency a bit aback, because there was a pause before she recovered, saying brightly “Ooo-KAY then!"  She gave me an address, said " It's a party, thanks for doing this, bye!"  And hung up with a relief I could hear 20 blocks away - On reflection, I should probably have paid a little more attention to that.  However, pausing only to change into a cute dress, feed the prowling catbeasts and mentally spend the eye-popping sum she had promised, I headed to the Upper West Side.

The building's lobby was gleamingly ostentatious.  The doorman had obviously gotten high marks in the “eyeing visitors suspiciously” part of the doorman exam.  When he finally put down the tenant phone and announced grudgingly, “They'll see you now", I heard the unsaid warning "…and don't track anything on the carpet with your Payless MaryJanes there, peasant."

The building elevator was bigger and much better furnished in my apartment.  Which made sense, when I got to the party place and found that their co-op was measurably bigger than the actual town I grew up in. It also seemed oddly deserted, until suddenly a cacophony of high-pitched giggling broke out in a far distant room.  I set out to find the noise, reluctantly abandoning the idea of leaving a trail of the ChexParty Mix so I could find my way back to the living room, and came upon a party, all right…it was a 12 year old's birthday party. Yikes. The nice agency lady didn't mention this. I don't read for people under 18.

While I was undergoing a St. Augustine-size crisis of conscience--"Dear God, give me a way to keep my professional ethos intact and yet still be able to buy shoes", was my shallow yet heartfelt prayer-a professional kids party entertainment troupe was organizing a"Murder Mystery" for the young ‘uns. Wow. Those children managed to reach a decibel level that would make Def Leppard weep with envy.

Meanwhile, I  walked in and greeted the assembled parents. I was led to a kitchen table by an immensely patronizing mom, who made it clear that she thought I was a…well, a Tarot reader sent by a party agency. (Which is why I don't work with agencies, there's just too much stigma to overcome and it takes energy away from the reading.) She sat me down in front of her extremely nice friend and said, "Here. DO her."

[Note: She meant "do a psychic reading for this person", lest you think this story is going in another direction entirely.]

I thought “O-kay. Let's see if we can take that smirk off your puss, my dear." Sat down, took the younger woman's hand and said ,"Disc problems, neck, two discs, for operations in two years. Also lower back, L2 and L3 discs, especially affected."

They both gaped at me. Well, that was fun.

The older woman said, accusingly,"Who told you that?" She was a little angry.

I turned back to the younger woman."Your mother issues are entirely valid; she WAS enormously controlling and she WAS verbally abusive, but you have to remember that you were her only daughter, and she did love you tremendously but-due to the situation with her father, especially-she simply didn't have the emotional tools in her toolkit to show love. And she didn't love your three brothers better."

Silence.

The other woman said."Look, someone must've told you she has three brothers."

I took HER hand and said,"You work in an agency of some kind; your specialty is coordinating various groups of people in some way; you work, with each group separately and then coordinate them. You work for the greater good. You went back to work recently after taking time off. You just got a promotion, you sit here [drew diagram on the tablecloth with my finger] and the man who is your boss and yet is not directly your boss, sits over here. He has a tree in his office. The woman you don't get along with sit here: she's bossy, but doesn't actually know what she's doing. Short black hair. Bad lipstick choices."

Silence.

Then suddenly, I'm a bit ashamed of myself. Everyone has their buttons, and mine is being condescended to. I have way too much pride. And psychics are supposed to be accurate, but we are not really supposed to show off. -Or are we??

More silence.

Then suddenly the older woman begins to laugh. She's delighted, like a kid who's Justina really good magic trick. “That's TOTALLY RIGHT!! OH MY GOD!! That's AMAZING!! How do you DO that?"

I said truthfully, "I have NO idea."

I finished both their readings, and as always happens after I do a reading for someone, we felt sort of bonded and would smile warmly across the room. When we caught each other's eyes at the party. Meanwhile, you put a visible Tarot deck in a room with a bunch of 12-year-old girls and soon you will be surrounded by an imploring, lipglossed tribe of supplicants. No way I could say no, but man, is THAT a tricky thing… Many, many ethical considerations. I do not do readings for the under 18 crowd. Finally, I figured out a way in which I could do it with ethics and integrity. This involved reflecting back the most obvious positive aspects of the child in question, and telling them that if they take breaks during studying to say the magic phrase." I am now remembering and understanding this perfectly!" that they would do even better in school. I also made a point of telling them that there's no such thing as hard-and-fast "fortune-telling": that we each make our own luck and destiny, with hard work, honesty and respect for ourselves and the folks around us. [Re-reading this, I sound a bit like a sanctimonious pill, but it was the best I could do at the time.] -Just to satisfy ‘em a little, I would tell them how many brothers and sisters they had, or if they had a pet and what kind of pet they had and even sometimes with the pet's name was. They LOVED it. BUT--not a single girl, even the 13-year-olds, asked about boys. Is the latency period longer than it used to be? What's UP with that?

Then, just as I was leaving the older woman came up with her five-year-old boy. He was a "Leave It To Beaver" outtake with huge blue eyes, total sweetness radiating from his every pore, and a Mets hat on.

"Max says something to ask you" she said.

"Will you read my fortune?" he said.

[Oh, boy. Yikes. God? Help me out here.]

I knelt down."Hi Max! I'm Miss Peri!"

"Hi," he said in a suddenly wee voice.

"Max, I see with my magic powers that you LOVE baseball!"

His eyes got really big."Wow!" he breathed.

"Well, you ARE wearing a Mets hat, Max. So that's not magic, it's just paying attention, which is really all I do."

He thought for a minute. "Can you tell me what my favorite subject is?" he challenged.

" Math!" I shot back. "And you're good at baseball because you're really great batter and have great hand-eye coordination."

His mom laughed. "He just tested really high for that."

Max looked down and blushed. "I AM a great batter", he admitted in a whisper.

"And I bet you have so many friends, because you really care about other people's feelings and that's great."

"Yes." he whispered.

"Max, you're going to have the best year ever. That's my prediction." I shook his hand and prepared to rise but he caught my arm.

"Miss Peri?”

"Yes, Max?"

"Will I have children?" His eyes were big and his face was solemn. He really wanted to know. It was such an odd, unexpected question, that my eyes welled up.

"Maxie, you can have all the children you want, you can adopt some too. But promise me something?"

"What?" He looked relieved, but still anxious.

"Please don't get married until you're at least 11"

I kissed the top of his head and ran out the door.


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Thanks and love
P.