Time

We dance in the living room. He leads and I follow. He spins me around and around and around until he can’t take it anymore and lets go of my hand. "Where are you going?" I ask. 

From the bed, he says, "I can't take it, you're so happy and I don't know what to do with it. What if you're never this happy again? It was like I was watching you from a memory. I don't know how to deal with the passage of time."

I lay beside him. "That's why people have cameras. It’s why I like writing. To record memories before I lose them. You need to write songs again."

For two weeks he has been stuffing and squeezing every thought and emotion into a hidden closet and because he didn't tell me where the closet was hidden, I opened it accidentally and everything spilled out at once.

BEARS!

With terrorized trepidation, I tread through the brush, expecting a bear behind every branch. Branches crack to my left. My eyes roll quietly to look. Oh shit. It's a bear.
It's a fucking brown bear. Why isn't he moving?



He still isn't moving.

WHY ISN'T HE MOVING?  Oh. It's a tree stump. It's a fucking tree stump.

The Grocer

An old professor of mine carries his groceries toward me. "Raaaachel, what are you doing here?"

"Working." I say with a smile as I gather paper bags to busy my fidgeting fingers. Obviously.

Three years ago, I graduated and moved to New York City. Three months ago, I moved back to this place where the sky is not interrupted by cement and brick, but by black crows and mountains.

When my professor leaves, I nearly cry from shame, but then I remember that I am happy and this job is temporary.

What a Trooper

photo by: Christina Watka

"We spend millions of dollars putting these 65-mile-an-hour signs up and down the highway... and we expect people to read them." The state trooper states with the slightest of sarcasm. I smile. "Sorry." I say, laughing gently. He thinks the gun on his hilt and the lights on his car make him in charge, but I see what he's doing. He's playing good cop to an imaginary bad cop and he's making me more late for work. "This would have been a $110 ticket." He says, handing me a written warning. "Thank you." I say. Like a peasant, I bow to the queen.  

Pursuit

So now what do I do? Pursue to keep my happiness?

Portuguese Red Wine

The old man with the handwritten menus smiles at me and asks if we are celebrating anything. "Yes!" I smile back. "He just got a job!"

We sit at a small table beside the window with a basket of soft white bread and chopped olives.

Scott lifts his glass to prevent me from drinking and carefully I lift mine, but excitedly, I spill run-on sentences all over myself. "This is such an enormous success!"

"I will never have a bigger success than you." He says.
Two tired tears sit watching from my eyelids before my fingertips gently carry them to bed. Then I look down at my full glass of wine, wonder why it was still so full and slurp a sip.

"We were doing a toast!" He laughs.


"Oh yeah. sorry ...clink."

This morning, we awoke in the 1950S.

The alarm clock rings until Scott stops the bell.


I pull back my sheets and blankets; climb out of bed; slip my red pedicured toes into my slippers; wrap my bathrobe around my yellow floral pajama shirt and pants; adjust my pink curlers and make my twin bed.

Scott is in the shower singing Jailhouse Rock. "You'll wake the neighbors!" I sing to him from behind the closed bathroom door. While the coffee maker brews, I set up the ironing board to iron the creases from his new dress shirt and slacks.

He looks so grown up, like my father. It is nice to see him in something besides his black leather jacket, cotton white tee-shirt and blue jeans. With gel in his combed back hair, he kisses me good morning.

When he leaves for his interview, I wish him luck.

Sometimes, growing up feels more like going back in time.