The dirt road in back of my house was
a short cut to Wianno Ave, our "main street',
where I would go to school, the movies,
or to my friends' houses to play. I rarely met
anyone walking along that path, so I could
pick blueberries and blackberries
wherecer I found them .

Near the end was a lovely stucco house
surrounded by tall, shapely everygreens.
I often stopped by the patch of
lillies of the valley edging the property
to catch a glimpse of the French lady
who lieed there with her maid.

How did I know she was French and
why did I want to see her again?
Everyone knew her naationality,
but the rest was a mystery.
All I knewwas she was the most elegant, stylish
and gentile woman I had ever encountered.
in my small, provintial Cape Cod village.

Me? I was a bit ruogh and tumble,
a tomboy I guess. Not particularly pretty,
with thick glasses and bowl-cut hair, so I kept the
visits to myself to avoid the usual mockery.
But somewhow, I knew that she was 'who' I
wanted to become, no matter how far fetched.

A hundred or so years later, she is still
the prototype for my 'finished product'
(me). Still with some rough edges,
but fluent in French, with a flair for
creative dressing and a passion for the arts.

Now I'm 100% Irish, but somehere in that
rich and colorful gene pool of Europe
and the Gaelic Isles, I snagged a memory
of a French lady. Or perhaps she snagged me?

Either way, it tells me that family history
country of origin and race may not have the finsl
say in the creation of an individual.
What a wonderful mystery that is!

Just realized today that I
don't have to visit, relive,
and process old hurts.
Why did I do it for so long?

the pain too close to
the surface? Or was it
because I thought I 'could
make sense of the
'soul junk' roiling around in
my subconscous? That's never
going to happen, is it.

So why don't I just
take a detour, and accept
that it's going to stay 'down
there' but I don't have
to GO there.

Not sure how or why I
realized this, but love
this lighter, stronger
version of me. Did I say
Love? Wow.

I would've liked another tomboy to catch tadpoles with,
but the boys hung out with other boys,
and the  girls, well, I guess they didn't
enjoy mucking about in a silty pond
with a smellyAussie Shepherd named Duke.

On a hot summer day, the murky water
was cooling, and the slinky little fellas
provided a challenging hunt. I imagined
they came up from a subterranean kingdom
with a Father and Mother Frog watching
from below. But I was quick, and
Duke would alert me to nearby swimmers.

Together we'd catch and release a dozen or so,
never meaning to harm. Except one day,
I decided to take some home in a glass
milk bottle. I hid it in the woods near my house
and forgot about it. Never again!
I considered them my friends, playmates.

I grew up straight, in case you're wondering.
So you see, girls can play dressup with paper dolls
AND build hideouts, go fishing,
climb trees, catch tadpoles, even read
Popular Mechanics cover to cover,
sketching self-driving cars that floate above
the road (on what, I wasn't sure).
But it was what I loved to do.

Explore, experiment, challenge, PLAY!
And my slimy friends were as good as any
to play with. They didn't disapprove
of my wild ways like many parents in
my uptight little town. But now that I
think of it, there was one boy who invited me
to climb trees with him.

He was lonely, living with his grandparents.
Before I headed back home one day,
he told me his Granny said "You could've picked
a prettier girl to bring home."
Like the song says "Que sera, sera." But it
did make me worry about my looks.
That was the last summer I chased tadpoles.

I'm laying on my side on a large pillow,
meant to share with my host's two Great Danes.
I'm enjoying the buzz, listening
to the music as the conversation flows.
Then suddenly I feel disembodied fingers
slowly trace a path down my side,
over my hips and down my thigh.

I look behind me, and yes,
it's the only Scorpio in the room.
He smiles a knowing smile at me,
as if he thought I enjoyed his touch.
I wasn't as much shocked that he could do this
(I'd had similar expeiences before),
as disguted by his arrogance.

The following year I became obsessed
with another Scorpio who wouldn't
touch me, yet I felt him, his energy,
his thoughts, as if they came from
inside my own head.

It's taught me that, whether we believe it'
or not, the mind can be curious and
innocent, or as intrusive and destructive
as its owners wish it to be.
I also learned to give Scorpios wide swathe.

Two billion years ago we gametes fused,
but it wasn't exactly working, abit too random.
So we specialized into tiny, mobile gametes and
larger, less mobile ones. You guessed it,
the prehistoric ***** and eggs.

Early reproduction was by hermaphroditic
organisms, until specialization led to two
distinct sexes, but only if it enabled survival.
So muitiple iterations became available as needed.
Fate, faith and mythology had nothing to do with it,
except to teach us not quite cooked humans that
if you had eggs, you stayed put and bred.
You lucky enough to have *****
could farm, fish, or rule as opporunity provided,
And those blessed with an abundance of testosterone could ****, maim and pillage - no permission needed.

And you're right - this isn't a poem, or a history of ****** specialization. Rather, it's biological mystery story,
a once upon a time tale that might help you
understand the rich and wild world of ****** diversity.

Like most of our qualities and characteristics, the "recipe'
is always about survival and adaptability. In other words,
there were no gametes named Adam and Eve. But perhaps,
there was a Garden of Eden where all us gametes got along?

Loosed strands of wanting, willing,
tossed by thought-winds,
day and night.
Heart's hope gathers
in the morning light,
to stumble and fall
when the darkness comes.