Relationships

Two Verses On the Sounds and Sights of Sunday

Posted on October 21, 2012 by Kami

Early Sunday mornings around here are drenched in silence.  It’s a decadent feeling.  You might even call it serene. There is the occasional sound of a car in the distance, the odd background hum of an air conditioner, but for the most part the birds have the Sunday morning playlist covered.

Hummingbird

Hummingbirds zzzzzz through the air, darting and dancing among the various blossoms and edible insects.  They have a short chipping call that I find endearing.

The coo of mourning doves lends an undertone of reverence to the mostly silent morning.  Towhees get their name from the sound they make and I can count on a pair of them, at least, to add their notes to the quiet Sunday melody.  There is the sweet peep peep of house finches and the cheery chirrup of sparrows.  Not surprisingly, the Grackles seem to sleep in on Sunday mornings; which is fine with me, as their brackish caw adds little to the peaceful atmosphere.  The mockingbird provides the variation in this quiet Sunday song, as its call will vary with its latest exploits.

Sure, the birds are singing every morning, not just on Sundays, but they are the predominate sound on Sundays.  Today, the birds’ soft symphony is not a thing one has to search for amid the cacophony of traffic, dogs, horns, sirens, alarms, bells, construction, freeways, airplanes and people.  Today, I get to enjoy the clear tones of nature, the morning breeze across my skin, the refreshing silence of a Sunday.

A Different Kind of Music

What a contrast this is to what will be later this afternoon.  The park across the street will be alive with Frisbees, walking barking dogs, squeaking swings, thrown balls and children in their element.  There might be a picnic in the ramada with an extended family or group of friends.  The benches will fill with relaxed bodies, blankets spread out on the lawn. Babies will tentatively touch the grass and pull that sour face.

Girl Belly Button Upside Down Monkey Bars Weal...

photo by: stevendepolo

The sprinklers will surprise someone when they come on without warning and then a new game will occupy water-fascinated children.  Tummies will get a taste of sunshine as a few people hang upside from the monkey bars.  A tussle or two will result in tears.  Bicycles will whiz past, scooters will clack, clack, clack across the sidewalk bumps, a longboarder will slouch past, beatnik like, relaxed and too cool for words.

Shoes will fill up with sand.  Knees will get scraped.  Faces will get dirty.  Hands sticky.  Souls saturated with the perfection of a Sunday afternoon.

Sundays were made for silence and sanctuary.  They are ideal days for naps, friends and family, and good food.  Sundays are perfect for contemplating the miraculous and the ordinary.  The sacredness of Sundays manifests in so many ways.  There’s no other day like a Sunday.  It’s like a mini-holiday every week..  I guess that’s what it is, or can be, if we choose to make it so.  It is a Holy Day, something simply divine.

Categories: Joy, Music, Outdoors, Relationships | Tags: , , , , , | 2 Comments

My Temporary Blue Funk: Not A Musical Group or Genre

Posted on October 16, 2012 by Kami

I’m feeling like a helium balloon that has lost its lift, hovering somewhere between the ceiling and the floor, the curled ribbon dragging the ground, the shiny color of me now a chalky version of myself.

A blue funk. That’s the only word I know to describe this.  Tears keep pushing at my eyes. Sighs keep escaping from my mouth. I want to close all the blinds, crawl under the covers and sleep until I wake feeling new.

Why So Blue?

A few days ago my parents flew into town for a visit.  And today they left.

There is nothing I can do about the feeling.  I am a grownup adult type person.  Very grown.  Very up, usually.  Why would I miss my Dad and Mom like this?

It happens every time I have to say goodbye to them.  I know it’ll happen like I know the sun is going to come up in the morning.  I can’t head it off at the pass.  I can’t sidetrack it.  I can’t make it not happen.  I’ve tried to analyze it.  I’m trying again, right now, as I write.

Why My World Turns Indigo:

Theory 1.) My parents seem to view me and treat me like I’m this amazing person.  I feel like I’m on a pedestal when I’m around them.  I’m pretty sure that’s because the teenager I was and the who I am now are so diametrically different.  I’m sure they wondered often if they would survive raising me.  I turned out okay after a while though, in good measure, because they never gave up on me, loved me anyway. And, I didn’t want to disappoint them.

It is nice being seen in such a good light.  I’m really not all that amazing.  Okay, maybe a little amazing, since I have such great parents.  It probably helps that I live two states away and they don’t see me that often.

Theory 2.) When I’m around my parents, maybe I’m more me than the usual me.  Or maybe I’m the ideal me.  Maybe I’m the best of both of them especially when we’re all together.   Does any of that make sense? So when they go it’s like the best me goes out the door, too.

Theory 3.) Nothing else in the world matches the feelings between parents and children.  There’s some connection, some energy, some something, that happens, that fills and feeds both the parent and the child when they’re together.  Maybe it’s more noticeable as we get older.  I’m not sure.  I’m just throwing out theories here from my blue state of mind. The more I think about this the deeper the blue gets.

Theory 4.) If I think about these things from my own kids’ points of view, (which is nearly impossible and a bit frightening actually) I’m not sure any of these theories hold any water, or hold up, or hold out, or whatever cliché I’m trying for in this sentence.  Do my kids miss me when I leave them? Are they more themselves when they’re around me?  Do they feel loved and idolized? (I hope so!) Do they get some energy from me that make them more…them?

Theory 5.) I’m really just a five year-old kindergartener at heart.  Every day is the first day of school.  The world was so much safer at home, so much more manageable, so much more kid-friendly.  Being around Mom and Dad makes me feel safe and loved and secure.  When they go, that sense of security, of “all’s right with the world,” goes with them.

Where’s My Blanket and Lambie?

There you have it.  I’ve analyzed it as far as my temporarily funky cerulean mood will let me take it.  I’m thinking it’s probably a combo of a few of the above theories.  Although, if pushed I’d say I’m leaning toward Theory 5.

Enough of the analysis.  The only way to get through this kind of short-term blues is to ride it out.

I’m gonna volley this deflated balloon around the room for a while.  Maybe I’ll eat a PBJ, break out the crayons and do some coloring, practice tying my shoelaces.  Then I’m going to curl up on my bed and sleep until I wake up to a different color.

Weekly Challenge Post 

Categories: Relationships | Tags: , , , | 11 Comments

Laughing at Death

Posted on October 14, 2012 by Kami

I became best friends with someone on Death’s fast track.

That was not my plan.  I had simply volunteered to do some driving.  My schedule was “whateva” and her schedule was whatever the Mayo Clinic said it was.

Boy, can I just tell you I was nervous that first day I drove.  I’d never been on a first name basis with cancer, chemo or the effects of either.  Within minutes of getting in her car she had set me at ease.  It was like some cog in the universe clicked into place and machinery started running.

We talked about anything and everything.  The comfortable nature of our conversation surprised and delighted me.  She is a direct and open person who says exactly what she thinks, how she feels, what’s in her head and her heart.  That freedom unlocked my usually reticent nature and I opened up with an honesty I didn’t know I had in me to give.

IT’S A TWO WAY STREET

I became a pretty regular driver for her.  She has been patient with me as I learned when to talk and when to keep to myself as she rides the waves of nausea or works her way through the gauntlet of pain for that day.  I’ve became familiar with her body language which can tell me when her pain meds aren’t enough, or signal me that she might have forgotten to take her meds altogether.  She recognizes, even through the chemo/cancer fog, when I’m having a crappy day.  She manages to get me to talk about whatever is on my mind.  And she listens as if my little worries are really important.  She never makes me feel like my stuff is stupid in comparison to her incredible hourly battles.

She is a phenomenal listener.  Sure she can talk up a storm and tell the most outrageously funny stories, but when it comes to listening, she is focused and following every word, even as a disintegrating rib grinds at her or one of her glass shattering migraines threatens with an explosion.

MISSING THE GOOD STUFF

Her kind of cancer, multiple myeloma, with the three out of four chromosomal deletions in her DNA chain, means she won’t be around to see grandkids born, will probably actually miss  most of her kids’ weddings, will miss most of her youngest daughter’s teen years.  It’s kept her from bouncing on the trampoline with her youngest which has really miffed them both.  This cancer has forced her to look death in the face and prepare for its inevitability.

Most of us don’t think about those things if we can help it.  We don’t plan our own funerals, pick out our own casket, make baby blankets for grandbabies we will never see, write letters for major life events in our children’s lives we won’t be there for.  Those things are her realities and she doesn’t pretend them away.  She talks about it all.  Not only does she talk about death openly and with a resilient faith, she laughs about her life as well.

Laughter...

Laughter… (Photo credit: leodelrosa…)

I could try to explain a situation where death sounds funny, but you wouldn’t get it.  I’m not that good of a comedian.  This is truly, utterly, absolutely one of those situations that you have to be there to get it.  But I guess I can try.

PARTY IN THE BATHROOM

Before her stem cell replacement she had a grueling five-day stint in the hospital where she became intimate with the desire to die.  The caustic chemical cocktail pumped into her to prepare her body for the onslaught of the stem cell treatment shook her to the core.  Her hair started to fall out in clumps.  Did she cry?  A little, maybe.  But what she did after that was call her neighbor’s son, who is a barber, and arranged a head shaving party.  Break out the video camera, she said.  They braided a bunch of little braids and then lopped those off for whoever wanted one, her sister, her daughters.   Then she had him shave words into the sides, her and her husband’s initials with a heart on one side and her graduating class year on the other.  Then they sculpted a bit of a Mohawk, spiked with some gel to complete the look.  Photos all around.  Then the final buzz and she was a bald woman.  A couple of days later we located an electric razor to take off the last prickly slivers that were still falling out and creating a nuisance.  She was smiling.  How does she do that?  It’s who she is.

BEATLES OR BEE GEES?

Here is another example of her humor. There were two ringtones I had picked out to use for when she called my cell phone.  Couldn’t decide which one to use so I told her about each one.  The first one is the Beatles  “Help!”  She knows she can call me anytime, night, day, for a soda run, a midnight ER ride, lunch, cleaning, errands, whatever.  And she has, and I’m so glad I’ve been able help.  By the same token she has been there for me in a hundred different ways.  She has listened through job losses, kid challenges, money worries.  She has loaned me her car countless times, paid for lunches beyond reckoning, filled me with diet Pepsi’s and been like a therapist to me.  So “Help” by her favorite band seemed a very appropriate ringtone.

But then, I also picked The Bee Gees “Stayin’ Alive.”  She heard that and giggled her signature little girl laugh. Staying alive has been her battle the past four years.  She has fought and endured hell to stay alive for her kids, to stick around, to be here as long as possible for them.  The fight has not been about herself, but about them. That she can laugh about a ringtone in the face of all that crap really rocks. That’s the ringtone she picked.  So when my phone starts singing, “Ah, ah, ah, ah, staying alive, staying alive,” a smile breaks across my face and I answer with joy, “Woman!!  What up?”  We crack ourselves up.

CONTAGIOUS

Nothing is quite so contagious as her smile.  She has dimples that rival any Gerber baby.  And her eyes are lit with mischievousness and hope.  No one being around her would ever guess at her battles or believe that she is walking the shortcut toward death.

I think sometimes that Death himself will walk past and not recognize her.  Maybe He has.  Maybe the energy of her laughter has kept Him at a distance these past few years. I hope she can keep on laughing.

Categories: Relationships | Tags: , , , , | 18 Comments

It’s Gratituesday!

Posted on October 9, 2012 by Kami

It’s Gratituesday!  Today I am thankful for the surprising mix of people who have brought me here, to who I am and to how I’m living my life.  We’ve moved around the country some during my married lifetime, and have lived in four different homes in the same town over the past fifteen years.  Every one of those moves placed people in my path who have shaped my view of the world,  sculpted an aspect of personality, tweaked how I tune in to events in my life.

I’ve found connections with an eclectic assortment of perspectives and temperaments, shared inside jokes and laughter with assorted comedic sensitivities, talked to, cried with and worked for people I never would have planned to be involved with.  But always, one person’s chemistry and complexities worked its magic on another. I’m so glad we were thrown together for however long, for whatever purpose.

Grand Canyon

Grand Canyon (Photo credit: YoTuT)

Sometimes it was a bumpy start.  Sometimes a rough ride in the middle made it seem we’d never learn from or help each other.  Sometimes reason was missing completely from the equation and yet the relationship still worked its purpose, like a river slowly carving away at a cliff wall, one grain of sand at a time.

There have been misunderstandings.  There have been mistakes.  There have been hours of missing those I left behind or friends who moved on ahead.  There have been countless joys, hugs, handshakes, winks, dusty trails, songs sung, tears shed, silences.  Relationships of every hue, tone, timbre, color, and pitch have lent themselves to the ongoing work of me becoming me.

Today I am me because of you.  For that I am grateful beyond imagining.

Categories: Gratituesday, Relationships | Tags: , , , | Leave a comment

“The Unrest of Those Who Follow”

Posted on October 7, 2012 by Kami

I recently revisited a novel I read over thirty years ago. I didn’t remember a thing about it, to the point that I wondered if I ever really read it before.  I must have been a bit distracted or clueless when I read it the first time.  I was a teenager then.  There have been at least a thousand books I’ve read since, so I should cut myself some slack, I guess.

This was a Thomas Hardy novel.  You can’t go wrong with a classic, I figured.   What I wasn’t expecting was to be so caught up in the story that I was outraged at the characters.

Aggravation set in right away at Tess’s father for being so ridiculously full of pride and so shallow.  Then I wanted to yell at her mother for being even more shallow and empty-headed than her silly husband.  Where do these people learn their poor communication skills?  And poor Tess, thrown to the wolves trying to make up for a mistake that never would have happened if her dumb dad hadn’t gotten drunk and been a lazy fool.

books

books (Photo credit: brody4)

Enter Gabriel Angel and you falsely hope that he’s going to save Tess from herself and her sad little life.  (“I’ll take poor assumptions for 800, Alex.”– see Finding Forrester.)  I consider him one of the most dangerous kinds of characters ever to have been created on paper.  Self-righteous, relentless in getting what he wants, unforgiving.  He’s painted as a sweet guy, on the surface, to the point that all the girls on the farm are senselessly in love with him.  “Run!” I wanted to yell at Tess.  “Stay away from this guy! Listen to your gut and run far, far away!”

But no, Tess was generous to a fault.  She gave and gave and gave. She gave everything she was to everyone else and had no thought for herself.  She gave herself to death, literally.

Why am I discussing my aggravation with this tragic story?  I didn’t expect to find myself caring so much about a character.  I mean, she’s just a made up paper person! Most of the fiction I read lets me keep my distance.  Oh sure, I’m interested in the plot, the story line, the what happens next.  But I’m not usually invested in the characters to the point of being incensed for them, being afraid for them.  To hear myself chat with my friends about this book made me sound like a raving lunatic.

Maybe, what it really is goes like this.  I’ve known some people like Tess.  You know the type.  They can’t seem to catch a break from life.  Every thing they try turns out strangely out of whack.  If life gives them oranges they end up with grapefruit juice.  If life gives them lemons they end up in jail due to their involvement in a pyramid scheme. The people in a position to really help someone like this end up doing the most damage.   It hurts to watch.  You want to turn your head, close the book and not pick it up again.  It’s a real-life tragedy that keeps being written and nothing you try to do changes how that person’s life is unraveling, tangling and disintegrating.

Once in a while I go back and open up one of those books, check on those real, living characters, hoping to find the plot line has changed.  Oh, how I wish the author of those stories could rewrite things a bit.  Sometimes the scenery has changed, various minor characters come and go, but the heartache and loss and hopelessness are unrelenting.

I guess that explains why I like to try to lose myself in a work of fiction.  The very nature of the made up story makes it safe and distances me from the difficulties in real life.  Or better, the author manages to paint insight into the human situation, giving me a new perspective I hadn’t yet considered.

The very best books will leave you breathless, or deep in thought, or changed somehow.  I guess Tess of d’Urberville is one of those books.  Hardy managed to break down one of my little walls of defense I’d constructed as a shield against caring for and hurting about the heartache in others lives.

How many other books have changed something inside me?  More than I care to acknowledge.  Have you read a book that rocked your world?  Has an author sent a seismic tremor rumbling beneath your feet? Or is it just me?

(Apologies or kudos to Mike Rich, the author of “Finding Forrester” for the title of this blog, borrowed from a quote from William Forrester’s book.)

Categories: Books, Relationships | Tags: , , | 2 Comments

Safety Pins and String

Posted on October 6, 2012 by Kami

“Stay away from the river!” Grandma would holler at us, not skipping a beat in whatever project she was in up to her elbows.

My cousins and I would let the screen door slam behind us as we headed outside. That wasn’t usually where we were planning on going, but it was where we always ended up.  First we’d circle around the enormous backyard, and do some exploring.  We might, or we might not, play in the old leaning barn, it’s smell of fresh hay and filtered sunlight and dust so tempting.  We might take off down the lane to see whatever there was to see that day.  Or we’d spy on the younger cousins, keeping well out of their vision lest we get wrangled by our parents into watching out for them.  There were some old foundations of buildings overgrown with grass and vines in another part of the tangled growth that was our cousins’ territory. Those were interesting places for the imagination to work with.

Inevitable

Safety pin, photo taken in Japan

But no matter what we might find to keep us entertained while the adults did their endless visiting, we would wind up at the river.  It was inevitable.  The river wasn’t even fifty yards away from Grandma’s front porch.  There wasn’t a fence or a barrier of any kind to keep us away from it’s beautiful gurgling, rush of water.  Besides that, it called to us, I’m sure of it.  “Come and play, come and play” it’s eddies and swirls would whisper.  Who could resist the call of a river?

The spot we favored was a small arching curve out where the river took a decidedly left-hand turn.  This served to slow the water down a bit.  Our favorite spot to play was a little rocky shallow area with willows and reeds just beside the slough.  “Stay away from that slough!” was another of Grandma’s favorite warnings.   The slough was a boggy grown in mess of mucky water that we wouldn’t dream of exploring. Our private area on the river’s shore, where we cautiously waded in and chucked rocks had clear splashy water with plenty of rocks on the shore to choose from.   It was quiet and hidden and felt like no other place on earth.

Fishing Heaven

If we had planned ahead we’d have a couple of safety pins, and some string.  And then we would have found some nice long sturdy sticks to attach them to.  We’d fling our short, makeshift lines out into the current only to have them immediately float right back to us.  I don’t think the string was ever quite long enough.  And even though our unmarried uncle sold bait to the real fishermen that frequented the river in that area, it never really dawned on us to bring some bait ourselves.  Impaling a wriggly worm on a safety-pin was the last thing I would dream of doing. Had we caught a fish, we wouldn’t have had a clue what to do with it. We were only pretending at everything we did anyway.

My cousins, who lived next door to Grandma, probably got to do real fishing all the time and were just humoring me.  Although, it seems they were every bit as invested in the process as I was.  Our bi-monthly visits to Grandma’s were a treat for us as well as for them.  We surely lived a charmed life when we got together.

With the vast amount cousins that spent time at Grandma’s it’s a miracle that no one ever drowned. I think there must have been some busy guardian angels at that spot in the river.  A few of the younger cousins seemed drawn to mayhem and mischief like flies to honey.  Or was it that mischief and mayhem was drawn to them?  That’s the more likely of the two.  I’m sure there were angels, or maybe even Saint Andrew himself, the patron saint of fishermen, who oversaw the protection and safety of our clan.  Surely it wasn’t that far for angels or saints to be on the job.  That spot, by Grandma’s house, was a little piece of heaven.

Categories: Memory Lane, Outdoors, Relationships | Tags: , , | 8 Comments

Are you a Morning Person, a Night Owl, or a Troll?

Posted on October 5, 2012 by Kami
young Long-eared owl (Asio otus), surroundings...

young Long-eared owl (Asio otus), surroundings of Warsaw, Poland (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Years ago, I believed the only way to get some quiet time in my house was to wait until everyone finally, blessedly, went to bed at night.  That’s a nice theory, but  it never really worked.  Oh, I spent a handful of all-nighters where I deep cleaned and organized the kitchen, or read entire chapters of books, blissfully uninterrupted, but that was when the kids were younger than twelve and had something that resembled a schedule.  Most nights, by the time everyone, including  my sweet husband, dropped off into Neverland, I was too zoned out to remember why I was so anxious to have them all go away to bed.  If I could remember the reason I so desperately wanted complete quiet then I was too sleepy to use the time effectively or enjoy my solitude.

Epiphany!

Then I had an epiphany!  (I love that word, don’t you?  It just rolls off your tongue.  It would make a great title for a novel and has probably been the title of a few million poems.)  Anyway, I did.  I had an epiphany.  Here it is:

I am a morning person.

That’s it!  Yes.  That’s all.  A.M.  That’s me.

Another Epiphany

P.M. That’s the rest of my family.

I’m married to a night owl and my children are all practically allergic to mornings.  Their ideal breakfast time is somewhere around noon.  Once the sun drops out of view in the western sky they kick into high gear.  Weird.

I don’t understand that.  I don’t particularly want to understand it.  But I have had to learn to live with it.

Some Adjustments Required

I’ve had to make some adjustments occasionally.  There have been those post-date, late into the wee hours of night discussions with my teens.  You MUST NOT doze off when THEY are in the mood to discuss their lives, even it’s two a.m.  Those were some of the best discussions ever.

My ideal bedtime is somewhere near sunset or shortly afterwards, but in order to foster family relationships I have let my bedtime inch toward the nether reaches of the night.  I’ve watched more MASH reruns with my sweet husband than either of us would ever publicly admit, but he has wanted my company on the couch beside him, sharing the laughter and I decided I would oblige him.  His favorite time for heartfelt discussions?  You guessed it, after ten p.m.  We finally decided to find a neutral time for potentially volatile communications, as I am not exactly emotionally stable as bedtime draws near, passes me and leaves me nodding my head in exhaustion.

Cons and Pros

Being a night person has its drawbacks if you are employed in a nine to five kind of situation, if you have children, if you have a dog, or parakeets, or if you live near a school, a park, a freeway, or other people.   Being a night person works very well if you are a college coed, a drug dealer or criminal, a law student, a med student, or you  work the swing shift.  Morning people have it a lot easier. Mostly.  Unless they live with all night people.  And I do mean ALL NIGHT.  Sigh.

The Enforcer

As you might imagine, I was always the enforcer when it came to prying the children out of bed in time to deliver them to the bus stop, the carpool, or most recently, the attendance office.  Our local high school decided to punish the parents for their children being late to school, requiring us to come into the office to sign in the child upon their late arrival.  Luckily I am a morning person and was always fully dressed for such occasions, unlike many other, obviously night people parents, who were still in some clothing resembling pajamas.  (I believe this is where the stylish idea for the messy hair look came from; night people who just couldn’t muster facing themselves in the mirror in the morning. But that is another topic altogether.)

My sweet husband has had to learn to battle his own morning demons.  As if there were such a thing as a MORNING demon!  Everyone knows demons can’t tolerate sunlight, just like trolls.

Hey, now there’s an epiphany!!

Categories: Relationships | Tags: , , , , | 8 Comments

Magic in the Morning Air

Posted on October 3, 2012 by Kami

It’s still dark, still practically night, at 4:50 when I leave my house to go walking. “She must be out of her mind,” you’re thinking. Don’t lie. I can hear you. “Who wakes up that early to go walking?” that’s what you’re thinking. “Crazy people, that’s who.”

“People from Central Arizona,” would be my reply. Yes, I am a bit crazy, that’s completely true. But, more important in this conversation is that I live in the greater Phoenix area. The DESERT. That is why I’m awake so ridiculously early and why I am walking in the dark. No offense to my fellow desert rats, I mean Valley of the Sun dwellers, but we all must be crazy to live here.

If you’d ever lived here, or do live here, an explanation for nearly night/early morning walks would not be necessary. But then most people are fortunate not to live in the desert so let me be more concise.

It’s flipping hot here in the desert, even at night, especially during our eternal summer. It cools down about 15 degrees at night if we’re lucky. So it’s 85 or 90 degrees when I leave in the dark to walk. Imagine what happens when that rolling ball of hydrogen surges over the protective horizon and starts blasting down laser rays of heat across the already baked, seared, sandblasted landscape of the desert floor.

We celebrate sunsets here in Arizona. Look at our flag, for crying out loud, it’s a sunset. We cheer when the sun goes away for the day. It’s a sign that we survived another blast furnace day.

Sunrises are nice during our six months of (cough) winter. But that’s another story. I digress.

I’m walking. Meeting my walking partner. Had I mentioned that? There’s an important detail. I don’t walk alone in the dark. No way.

I meet my walking partner where our two neighborhoods intersect.

The plants hover overhead. It’s so dark it could be midnight.

So we walk. We get sweaty even in the dark.

We talk.

We vent.

We laugh.

We cry.

We explain.

We justify.

We make sense of our lives, at least temporarily, as our feet move. Once we get home, reality sets in, but that, too, is another story.

We weave this beautiful, sad, heart wrenching tapestry in the air above us. I can almost see our words above us, intertwining, circling. Our conversation is an amazing work of art and heart. There are shades of blue mostly. That’s to be expected. But there are some brilliant greens looping through, like little vines. And some yellows burst in the air above that, like little fireworks. For some reason there hasn’t been much red. Lavender blossoms emerge in the conversational picture above us, their fragrance almost discernible.

It’s a priceless work of art we weave with our talk as we move along the path.

Reluctantly ending our walk, more reluctantly ending our conversation, we air hug. We’re both too sweaty for a real one.

The talking tapestry we created does this swirling dance, divides into two parts. One half follows her and the other half chases after me.

By then the sun is undeniably up for the day. A combination of heat, sore muscles and the solitude conspires to turn the dancing conversational colors in the air to a dust that settles in my hair and on my shoulders. The walk has worked its magic. I feel a bit more whole, a little bit more able to cope with reality. I am a little more what I need to be for the day ahead.

It’s worth the loss of sleep.

Categories: Outdoors, Relationships | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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