20 years of age on the 6th of 1989’s best month, August, we had a love affair, you could not stop saying the magic three,
The three we have said so many times, and meant every,
You kissed me all over my big baby skull, and smiled over my tiny baby heart and tinier baby fingers,
the ones typing this poem, and sketching the past sketches, the Bruce and Cape Cod and Evan.
You ran with me under doorways, protecting the first and at the time the only, protecting me with the most loving of fear,
And sang Danny boy as well as Take Me Out to the Ballgame as well as the National Anthem as well as The River,
And brought me to games and parks and hikes and…the beach, spilling mustard on my shirt, and chasing after my chase of a dog, and backing me around Heaven on Earth, and helping me see the waves as women.
In Rhode Island you found ways to keep us warm and found my Montana yard and knight gear and Will Clark connections.
You dressed my blisters and bought me an athlete’s tie and red batting helmet, letting me enjoy the living room with a fireplace,
And showed me how to draw, laugh, take my own style on the bus, cowboy boots most especially.
You flew me out to the OC and mystified my eyes and ears, once again with the Pacific, who I now found your eyes and voice and glee and plainly comforting childlike giggle;
O those stories you told and images you showed! And then,
The boy you birthed, the little tiger, the initials on my ribs, the reason for fighting for a future,
You gave us separate rooms, and a bunk bed, and costumes of sync and youth naivety,
costumes we were complemented on, compliments we took to ourselves, like the compliments on our looks and fashion we get today, however raggy or uniform colored it may in fact be.
O and the way you love that man named Frank, our father, dad, Pineapple-punching bag,
The hero you made him, the hero he is, and the way you showed us to just give, give what you got for what you love.
And the pickle you gifted us and the Gould boys, the pickle of Artistic Baseball, the Muscats are at the game type ball.
Then the final flight out, to the MC, the place where the world visits and Dad was born and you told your mom it was where you would live, when you were nine, like I was at the time, going on a Rich Aurillia goateed ten,
The 2 mile an hour drive in the fog, on Tam, above Marin, overlooking our clay, where we would play into our non-existing molds.
Molds not permanently casted cause you won’t let us, you showed us not to, and how not to, and why not to.
You then played us Wildflowers and took us along the mile of miracles to the School of San Rita, the holy, where stickball reigned supreme and the sentiment was not just Catholic, but education and being nice, like a family, like our family.
Then it was the school in front of the beach, the beach that would not have mattered had you not submitted to being a morning person and picking up another son and believing to pray for no sharks,
O the blue and gold technology! The found somewhere in your bosom skill!
And O! The non stop commitment to the teams and the school, the tolls to succeed! Whatever that may be, because like you said we define it ourselves, just like we fail, ourselves.
You hugged me through the four and stayed there whether or not it was great, you never let it go bad, your smile wouldn’t let it,
even when I was a storm trooper and I had to take the test again and I was not perfect,
And you told me location mattered because passion could not be left behind, especially the passion you gave, surfing, the root of my life and its cause, the blurry and accurate one, stuffed with blackberries and clouds and your care, as hidden as that care may be,
the care that is in the 7 day boxes and keychain and timelines of sleep and newfound love of beans, snappy as they are.
And remember that research, it felt so long ago, back when I was a teen and saying good bye was about to be fun, but you did it, for yourself, for me, for the opportunity to keep the good bye fun, new sheets included, and hanging tools, and magic bullet,
Especially the art pieces and that freshly opened spot in the heart for another woman to love.
Mom, I look to you like I look at my favorite book,
Or my favorite surfer,
Or wave, or song, or artist, or poem,
Or Bruce,
I see the pureness of motherhood and friendship and nature and young love and art,
I see you, blond haired, blue-eyed, and gorgeous, the woman my father chose, the woman I would choose, the woman who is in my poetry, book, painting, sketches, barrels, and sighs.
I love you mom, you are my reason for now.
-August 12, 2009 -Bugs…Jared A Muscat
