Small Changes

Carnegie Hall, 1997

This is horrible to say but ever since Elizabeth left The View, I've made a point to click it on at 11 am when I sit down to have a combo breakfast/lunch. It's just so nice to see Whoopi blossoming and the whole atmosphere shifting. The negative tension gone. No offense to Elizabeth, a great lesson for all of us. Life is too short to be the negative tension. A little goes a long way. Like Tanya Tucker used to sing, "If it don't come easy, better let it go."

Bye-bye Elizabeth.

This morning I've been thinking about my daughters' father, my ex, Eddie Wolford, Fast Eddie as he was called when he was alive and the lead guitarist for a regional band in the Southwest called Windfall. He was amazing. My younger brother was over last night and he looked at Windfalls's sole album I have framed (thanks, Marylynn) on the wall. "You should let me digitize that for the girls," he said. Great idea. I will. We got to talking so much, looking at his website on the computer, and drinking Sapporo beers that when he left, the album stayed on the wall, but it got me to thinking. I wish/hope I can get in touch with the band members. Three of them are brothers and still living in El Paso, I believe. What I'd like my daughters to see is a video of their Dad. See him up on stage, how electric he was, how he loved it. How he said that was the only time he was really happy. I get that. Although, as we get older, as I sit here at this computer, I feel I can speak for Eddie and me when I say there's lots of inbetween times that we'd like to bring to light, redo, explain, embrace. Like being with our children more, looking into their eyes, telling them HOW MUCH WE LOVE THEM, how they gave us life, how they made us rock and roll in happiness!

As we get older, we get so much damn smarter. Life's biggest prank on us. Getting older, getting wiser, and the only clear memory that hangs on are the ones from days gone by. Like a first birthday, picking them up after school, evenings with them, park time (or not enough), worrying over something or other WHEN NONE OF THAT MATTERS, now I know that.

Now I know that.

Eddie's birth family is nearly gone. His mom, dad, and now him, gone. I wonder about his brother who also had a problem with substance. I finally found his sister's new location. She's in Raleigh. I think she's mad at me or simply can't find the connection that means something, anything to her anymore. But I always liked her. How can I tell her about those rearing up, blindly searing days alone and trying to keep it all together? How that girl is not the same girl now? How I forgive and hope she can forgive, too?

My girls have five cousins on my side and two on their father's. It is my wish that Leila and Sarah meet Mary's girl and boy, grown now. All four of the Gilbert/Wolford's are grown. Sarah looks so much like Mary and Leila is Eddie in all his glory. I watched her dance the other night and she took our zest and perfected it. It was heaven to watch.

These things run through my head today, on my Mother's 78th birthday. She and I have run a ragged race together, but just yesterday we spoke on the phone and the negative tension is eroding. It felt so good. To talk to my mother and to feel the positive energy - between both of us - moving so easily about the rooms we sit in, across the wireless sky from North to South and everywhere inbetween.

Causes me even to kind of miss Elizabeth.

Happy Birthday, Mom.