Happy Fourth...uh...Fifth of July!!

It's been a busy few days.

We're on vacation in San Diego and having an amazing time. I got a whole passel of tight-deadline work assigned to me right before I left, so I've been juggling writing into my mornings and nights and feeling very smug about having a job that moves with me wherever I go.

My good friend and her family joined us here, and spending this week with her has been fabulous. Like me, she is a teacher and a busy mom, and having that second mom around as back-up made everything smooth as chocolate over the last few days.

Two of us to pack things up. Two of us to cast around for left behind shoes, hair bands, ipods, water bottles and all the other thousand things that daughters travel with.

Also two of us to sit by the pool last night, chatting and giggling. We watched the sunset and sipped our wine marveling that we could be so calm and so ready to see the fireworks. Everything and everyone was in place, hours ahead of time. It didn't have the usual frantic feel of a Fourth of July, as you jostle to get everyone into position and situated in the darkening night.

Just before dusk, while the sun was staining the clouds with gold, a summer rain fell. Completely refreshing and magical in its unexpectedness. Filled me with hope and joy that I sent radiating out to you as well.

Over the San Diego Bay, we saw at least eight simultaneous firework displays. Four of them were synchronized, separated by miles along the coast. The one closest to us had an echo of lights right behind it. It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen, green sparkles and golden fizz and bright, white, cold lights like diamonds in the sky hanging over the same buildings where I once worried about broken teacups.

Some teacups are never meant to break, and light might be fizzing up with the next rocket's burst.

Note to Self

Write a story with a character named Giselle.

It's pretty!

Tree Timeless

Above the house, the tree is a green testament to the nonexistence of time. Within the house, the family lives their lives as if time were real. They sleep, they wake, they eat, they age. But above the house hovers the tree. And the tree knows.

When the woman sits outside, she soaks up the sun and the small, quiet sounds of the unfolding day. Always, her eyes come back to the tree. Up and up its length her gaze travels until the tree alone takes over her entire vision, until the green of its leaves and the blue of the sky behind them are the only two colors remaining in her world. Green and blue. Up and up above. No matter what the day, no matter what the year, the tree has stood beside the house, waiting timelessly. That is when the woman understands that there is more to her life than the daily happenings that she pays so much attention to. There is more to life than the living itself.

Still... I Rise...

When I was a teacher long ago in my life before this life, we read a few Maya Angelou poems each year, scattered here and there. I've always liked the unstoppable persistence expressed in this one:

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

One Morning

The lemonade is tart and cool. While the fountain splashes merrily in the sunshine, she considers the nature of life.

"I think I'm falling in love with him." Her friend's voice crackles through the phone in her hand.

She wishes she had something cheerful to say, something encouraging. She wishes that life wasn't as hard as it is.

"Well," she finally speaks. "he'll probably break your heart in the end. That's the way it usually works out. You just have to ask yourself if the enjoyment will be worth the inevitable pain."

Of course, she worries for her friend. Of course, she does not want to see her hurt and rejected. At the same time, she understands that love is an unstoppable force, and nothing that she could say would protect her friend from the wild ride which she has already begun.

Ah, and what a ride, huh?

What Next?

She sits in the hypnotist's office and watches the swing of the pendulum.

Behind her cloud of golden-white hair, the medium is intense. Light dazzles off the silver pyramid as it revolves back and forth along the line of decision.

The woman leans forward eagerly and hopes to be told what to do.

too tired to put together words - too much energy going in too many directions - layers and layers and layers -

soon more focus will come -

made choices; learned humility; kept going