MJS Creative Landing

After landing in Amsterdam from a 15 hour flight from Dallas, TX, we were exhausted. It was May 14th, 2002. He and I had never traveled that far from home before. He didn't have a passport before he met me. He did more traveling across the country than he had ever done in his 41 years; this was probably because he was an unfocused pothead and had low self-esteem. I was a very focused codependent looking to find a way to rescue this relationship by seeing if moving to Europe was a viable option for an unredeemed pothead-coke head. I would be his would be Christ. We were given a box of chocolates to give to Cyril's twin cousins who lived in the city proper. Cyril had arranged for us to stay with his cousins for a day or two upon arrival. We lugged our large duffle bags from the airport onto the Tram. Cyril told us to purchase  Strippenkaart cards to pay for our Tram fare. Schiphol airport would have them. As we awaited the trolley, we knew we were terribly exhausted. Jet lag was ...

My mother was driving my sister and me out to her parents house. My grandparents lived 7 and a half miles from our house, but in another city. I would learn to time this drive because it would be a consistent part of my life, like periods would become and losing baby teeth, or bi-weekly pay checks.  As we went over the Highway 84 bridge the sign showed the population of our city. It was 110,000. Today forty-five years later or so, it is 138,000. We would drive under the 1-35 corridor bridge and twaddle toward my grandparents house at 25 miles per hour. One day momma stopped at the "filling station" to get gas at the half way point. I told her that I had to go to the bathroom. She said I could and my sister went with me. We were maybe about 6 and 7 years old. My sister is the youngest. I don't know why my brothers were not with us (they were 8 and 10). It was most often all four children with momma everywhere and all the time. We enter this blue metal door on the side of t...