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Getting Naked With The Secretary Of State
So, with a new moon in the western sky, we're just three college friends spending a week together at a Mexican spa; but, of course, one of us only completed her
term as Secretary of State 6 days ago, and that means we're here in the mountains in a small adobe villa; and our job (the two of us who were not Secretary of
State) say with some hubris, is to counsel and to debrief Madame Secretary (code name Fireball) brainstorm with her about her book, even as the auction for this is
taking place far across the country, and though there are many firms bidding, we're not sure how many since none of our cell phones are working properly and
voices at the other end
speak to us in rapid Spanish; and that's a lesser problem than that the Secretary hasn't got any hot water in her bathroom, though we have a huge blue-tiled tub in
ours and keep talking about the possibility of taking a late
night bubble bath together which we put off because we're exhausted from a killer schedule of the sunrise hikes, noon picnic walks and afternoon climbs as well
as sessions of Pilates, yoga, Tai Chi, hip-hop, djembe drumming, wreath making, weight-lifting, African dance, and even cardio-boxing; and, in our spare time, Old
Grandfather Raven, the resident French-Jewish Shoshone has cast stones and bones for us, predicted blue skies, passion, clarity of future days, and we laugh about
him back in our villa littered with
newspapers, books, shoes, half-empty wine glasses, sweat socks and mugs
of
Red Zinger tea-- an adult version of our college rooms where we've
(again!)
strewn our clothes everywhere, walked around in varying states of
undress
complaining about our figures, discussing laundry but not doing it and
taking
notes until, everywhere, the eye falls on scattered pieces of paper
with odd
phone numbers and a pathological array of pens: fountain, ball-points,
felt
tips, highlighters; and, yes the desire to have a pen is our worst
addiction and we are trying, for a week at least, to kick that habit
and
relax into mindfulness; but we seem to have difficulty with the pens as
well
as with clearing our thoughts when we walk the new labyrinth in the oak forest and or when we hike across the mountain with Noah, our guide,
examining the granite batholith as well as Pig Rock, Skull Rock, coyote
scat,
and Bishop's candle, and though Madame Secretary sees all this she also
sees
the drug and immigrant problems, the border issues of fire, ecology,
and
pollution, and she's counting miles, looking not at her feet but into
the
future, and when we come down from the mountain, other spa guests
(having
mindfulness issues of their own) begin to approach us and ask
questions,
eager for some of Fireball's heat and light; so, with them, we discuss
politics, the new president, foreign policy, the need to swallow Beano
with
spa cuisine, our kids, the men in our lives, Cuba, the questionable
intimacy
of Manuel's hot stone massage, the shape of women's lives today,
condoms,
where we are now and where we expect to be 10 years from now, and then
we
laugh that we are turning green from all the lettuce, broccoli, peas,
spinach, avocado, zucchini in this healthy vegetarian diet; and when
the
three of us are alone, we insist we're starving and think we'll have to
"go
over the wall" by tomorrow night to enjoy a fat-laden feast in town at
La
Mision as a mariachi band serenades us; and once there we'll sit around
looking back, looking forward as we toast while Madame Secretary assures us she has just left the best job in the world, that it's not as easy as
it
looks, that she's proud to be an American, that it was a privilege to
sit
behind a nameplate that said United States Of America; and what did
you
say? what about getting naked with the Secretary of State?
well... it's
not happening, but hey it did make for a very catchy title.
Susan Terris' new book FIRE IS FAVORABLE TO THE DREAMER will be
published in
2003 by Arctos Press. In 2004, Gary Metras at Adastra Press will
publish a
letterpress edition of her book Poetic License. Recent
fiction: NELL'S QUILT (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). Her journal
publications
include The Antioch Review, The Midwest Quarterly, Ploughshares,
Missouri
Review, and Southern California Anthology. With CB Follett, she is
co-editor of a new journal, RUNES, A Review Of Poetry.
In Posse:
Potentially, might be ... 
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