Blackbirds singin' in the trees

There's a knock on the front door and I can hear it and see the fist tapping on the window from my mixer. It's probable someone looking to see if we're open for lunch, which we aren't, and it seems like every time I have to tell a middle aged woman with her matching suit set that- she looks at me as if I personally shut down the lunch service and ruined her afternoon. I hate having to talk to these women. I shut the mixer off and shuffle my way through the bar, but when I get closer to the door I realize it isn't a woman at all. Women don't wear purple gloves, yellow shirts, and rainbow suspenders. Women don't have a red afro or a bright orange nose framed by white facepaint in the shape of an exaggerated smile. Oh no, this, this is a clown. And this clown is carrying three happy birthday balloons and a guitar, I open the door and call to Liz because I'll be damned if I don't have a witness for this. My boyfriend,who is in the Adirondaks, has sent me a singing gram as I turn a year older and I can't stop from smiling. It's so very much him, in a way that flowers or whatever else just can't convey. Goofy and cute. For the hours that I spent worrying that he would forget, I wish I has spent them some other way. It's a biproduct of actually being forgotten year after year and I recognize that and try to stop the crazy that tends to bubble up. It's a difficult balance between learning from the mistakes of the past and comparing them to your present state. It's impossible to expect that those two won't intersect and all of a sudden you're afraid that history will repeat itself and heaven knows you don't want to go down that road again. All I can do it take responsibitlity for my actions of the past couple of years, strive to do better, and open the door to what's next. On October 30th,it was a a singing clown.