A Safe Place

  • A Safe Place

    By Kathleen Haynie

    When did I feel safe?

    I can’t remember ever feeling safe. I search. Maybe I felt safe at Ocean Beach—only strangers around and I could keep my distance. A place to run to on the “N” Judah street car. Run from the fighting, run from hurt, run from the anger. Run to feel away, to feel unfettered, to yell at the ocean where no one could hear my voice drowned out by the Pacific roar.

    I could hide in the open expanse of sand and waves and roar and motion and cry, the tears running.

    Running.

    Run into the cold fog, run into the bits of sand in the air, run with the pull of the earth. Drawn into the pull of the receding water, losing itself/myself into the empty of personality, empty of emotion. Fleeing and dissolving into the pull back into self.

    Self-drained with fast breathing, salt saliva falling from the corners of my mouth, legs shuddering. Walk into the empty, let down, rhythm, constant, certain, constantly coming in, constantly leaving and blending, losing.

    Safe in the roar, safe in the pull, safe in the empty.

    Kathleen Haynie. This City Girl turned into a Sonoma County Horse Girl, and then retired from decades as a professional in health care. She is now acting out a latent inclination for the dramatic arts as a drama student and cast member of Off the Page Readers Theater.

    Surprisingly, the journey continues into the newly found delight discovered in written expression. Kathleen felt honored to have her work, What They Did to Alice, performed at the 6th Street Playhouse 2020 Women’s Festival. She has decided that dark chocolate is perfect with a full-bodied red wine.

    Marlene C

  • Complimented Complement

    By Kathleen Haynie

    Yes, it drives me nuts. They take an English word that has some nuanced meaning for them personally, and they use it to name some untouchable gadget they have invented. And then someone else makes the gadget anew and puts a new name on it. Then it becomes daily language usage.

    She was complaining that her boyfriend didn’t understand her feelings.

    “He doesn’t have enough bandwidth, I guess.”

    That word no longer belongs in Techieville.

    Complement with an “e” gets merged into compliment with an “I” because spell check doesn’t check it. Someone must think highly of me because I am always getting complimentary “one-month free” offers.

    My e-mail gadget is called a program, a file, or a client. My clients usually pay me for my services, but this one does a service for me for free!

    I went to copy some text on my computer to a CD disk. The boxes say rip, export, import, burn, copy. Which is which? Is it a webpage, a site, a platform, or what? 

    And how do I populate a digital screen? If I click “OK,” will it apply it?

    I put my computer desk in my new large bedroom. I had never slept with my laptop before, and did not know that computers, like spiders, are nocturnal creatures. In the middle of the nights, Microsoft updates my windows.

    I hate cleaning my windows. The updates update my task bar so the start icon won’t open and the sound icon doesn’t adjust the sound.

    The techie help support on the phone tells me to fix the problem by first opening the start icon.

    “Oh, that’s right. You can’t do that.”

    Help!

    Kathleen Haynie. This City Girl turned into a Sonoma County Horse Girl, and then retired from decades as a professional in health care. She is now acting out a latent inclination for the dramatic arts as a drama student and cast member of Off the Page Readers Theater. Surprisingly, the journey continues into the newly found delight discovered in written expression. Kathleen felt honored to have her work, What They Did to Alice, performed at the 6th Street Playhouse 2020 Women’s Festival. She has decided that dark chocolate is perfect with a full-bodied red wine.

    Marlene C

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  • Calm

    By Kathleen Haynie

    I drive by her turn-out, roll down the passenger car window to greet her with my best whinny. I can see her whinny ripple through the flesh of her sorrel and white soft muzzle. That muzzle will soon be buried in the red wheat bran she knows is coming. This time it is laced with bute to ease her pain from her sprained right knee. I hope the alfalfa sprinkles camouflage the taste of bute.*

    She is not too distracted with the hay and grain to lift each foot in turn so I can clean out the V ruts of each frog. After seventeen years, we know the drill. The curry comb pulls off twigs of the white winter coat on her back and haunches.

    Somehow the earth tells her body that it’s time to start letting go as the days grow longer. Yet the nights are still so very cold. Her new coat is a little whiter, a little redder, a little softer to touch. I have to lean down to nuzzle in that soft dipped curve between her shoulder and neck in order to take in the smell of sweet salty horse sweat. At nine years of age my nose was at the same level of that spot.

    Now I look up at the open blue sky and see a few puffs of white cumulus, and feel on my face the crisp ocean air coming across the valley. The constant rhythm of her teeth grinding the grain soothes the time. A desperately needed calming moment.

    *Phenylbutazone, often referred to as “bute, “is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug for the short-term treatment of pain and fever in animals. (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenylbutazone)

    Kathleen Haynie. This City Girl turned into a Sonoma County Horse Girl, and then retired from decades as a professional in health care. She is now acting out a latent inclination for the dramatic arts as a drama student and cast member of Off the Page Readers Theater. Surprisingly, the journey continues into the newly found delight discovered in written expression. Kathleen felt honored to have her work, What They Did to Alice, performed at the 6th Street Playhouse 2020 Women’s Festival. She has decided that dark chocolate is perfect with a full-bodied red wine.

    Marlene C

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