Masquerade

The painted faces on the street
caricatures of long ago
oh they were young and oh so sweet
down beyond the boulevard
knock on doors and empty halls
and still sometimes remember
the masquerade's forever

Berlin - Masquerade

I love this time of year, the last summer days leading to Fall. I spent Saturday morning wandering through a Halloween store looking at cheap costumes and tacky lawn displays. I went to a concert on Saturday night. I spent Sunday afternoon making raspberry lemon muffins.

I had two good days this weekend. I only added two time stamps to my Google calendar. One was Saturday when it appears that I  mentally "checked out"  in Safeway. Maybe I was day-dreaming, maybe it was an absence seizure - since there was no pre-ictal agony or pain. Odd. Generally I have some sort of my-head-is-fucking-murdering-me aura before anything hits me. I would not had noticed if not for my boyfriend asking what took me so long (it took me half an hour to grab one item and meet him on the other side of the store? What?) Two was Sunday afternoon when the typical coldness crept over my body and chilled my limbs. I went to sleep for two hours. I felt fine after.

Otherwise my weekend was magical. My slumber filled with surreal yet non-threatening dreams, my waking hours filled with conversation. I want to tell a million stories when my brain is working - I want to get everything out - before the cognitive clouds gather again and the electrical brain storms return. Brain monsoons.

I was thinking about the duality of my summer childhood days.

My maternal grandparents were prim and proper. Maternal summer days were filled with pretty dresses, crisp linen, books and embroidery work. I baked peach pies with my maternal grandmother and gathered strawberries from the garden. I wore white satin gloves and had tea parties with my grandmother. My well-dressed grandfather would take me on weekend day-trips to prospect for opals and other gems and minerals.

My summer childhood days were chaste.

Sometimes when I have a seizure - it is not fear that I feel - instead I feel TIME, a very specific moment of time. Sometimes I feel an exact moment of time I spent with my maternal grandparents - I feel the exact color, emotion, warmth, and smell of the moment - an exact moment perfectly preserved, crystallized and encapsulated - I am emotionally overwhelmed by the nostalgia. Afterwards it is impossible for me to speak about it without a face full of tears and a lump in my throat. The moment - it is heightened -hyper-real. Sometimes seizures are like time machines.

My paternal grandparents were drunk and disorderly. Paternal summer days were filled with dirty hair, greasy burgers, books and bar patrons. I ran wild in the desert as my maternal grandmother tended bar. My t-shirt and jeans wearing grandfather would stop to buy me a "pop" at a local bar on our way home from grocery shopping. I didn't realize as a child that it was because he needed another drink - he couldn't wait to get home to his own bar - he had to have another drink right now.

I have not had seizure related memories of my paternal grandparents - instead my memories are "real" (sometimes seizures make you question what is "real".). My memories are sometimes happy and sometimes brutal - spending early mornings with my cousin's in my grandparents bar - we shot pool and played the jukebox while our grandparents slept - we drank far too many high ball glasses of soda pop from the [soda] [tonic][Coke][7up] button-triggered bar pour gun. We rode dirt bikes, traded pocket knives, shot off firecrackers and ate too much candy. We explored abandoned yet perfectly intact houses - pretending they were our own.  We ran under foot among drunks and floozies. We cried when our grandfather was murdered.

My summer childhood days were vulgar.

the reeling figures pass on by
like ghosts in some forgotten play
beneath the black and empty sky
music plays and figures dance
with partners chosen by chance
and still some times remember
the masquerade's forever

Berlin - Masquerade