Tuesday, September 16, 2014

As I stand on the grass and look down river, I want to drink the pink wash sky -stretch wide my wet lips and gulp. 

Monday, September 8, 2014

A stubborn latch


The movie is sold out and we've already had supper and a beer and bowl of peanuts from our old favorite bar. So we drive to college, which is now right down the road, past where the old filthy fraternities are now pretty green meadows. The door to our old theater department is accidentally open, a stubborn latch. Inside, photographs of me are on the walls in glass cases: artifacts of my glory days of lit stages. I feel old and somewhat wise, while simultaneously feeling like the fat football jock who lingers beside the rusty rickety bleachers hoping someone might recognize his name from an old trophy or his face from a framed newspaper clipping.  There I was, happy. Life was easy back then, back when I thought it was hard. 

Fly With Me




I have been swallowed by the excitement and isolation of inspiration -a craft project for my new classroom. He is at the desk in our little lofted office, very cross from his computer game losses. And as the night nears, the dog needs to run, pee and probably poop.

"Can we all go outside now?" He asks me, standing beside the kitchen table where double-sided tape and felt scraps pile in heaping hills of brown, green, blue and gold. The fresh air from earlier has leaked from his lungs and the stains on his feet have gone from green to gray.

It was going to be me. I will take our gal jogging. I had offered before I cut myself into a corner with pink fabric scissors, trapped in the timelessness of building something.

Now it feels too late for organized exercise. It is nearly night and I'm hungry for supper.

We slip into sandals and shoes, grab plastic bags, the leash and our long rounded rope. Feet and paws trample the narrow cement street and step onto grass. At the center of this post pioneer place of farm houses, fields, a wide brown river, ancient trees, and a red tent of sunflowers in mason jars for sale, "The Commons" as they are commonly called can be run through with naked soles.

The grass clippings clump into soft tufts, which fly and fall as we sprint like children. I have the dog on her leash and for added length, our long rope, its slack slung from shoulder to hip. I still wear my skirt from work. I don't care. We run. Penny pulls to catch Scott who sprints ahead of us with his long legs. With every jostling flight-like step, laughter escapes my lungs with this purified air and all the stress I have been hoarding in the pit of my belly.

I want more spontaneous play in my life. I don't always need to be corseted in cotton sports bras, pressed into spandex, or laced up into sneakers with socks. Life is too short to not kick off my shoes and run as fast as I can.

A Wise Friend

A wise friend is akin to a book of old wisdom.  A book of bone and soul and skin. A book that breathes and speaks and eats. A book with a so...