Thunder claps, disturbing a peaceful Sunday afternoon.
Dark clouds roll in, dashing plans to visit the gardens.
So we open up the shades and watch the lightning dance in the sky.
The cats jump up settling in, protected from the storm.
The thunder quiets down as the heavens open up,
The rain hitting the windows eventually lulls us into a nap.
Time rolls by, and the clouds roll away.
Brightening the skies back to blue, the sun strikes out
and wakes us from our dreamy slumber.
The bright sun above beats down, how hot can it get?
The glass of iced tea sweats, leaving behind a ring of wet.
The birds are silent; the weather is even too warm for them.
The dragonflies are hanging above, each insect they find a gem.
She waters the small garden, the heat makes her shoulders glisten,
The tomatoes perk up and the flowers and herbs brighten.
Being in the shade gives relief to some,
The warmest days are yet to come.
A battle of opposites begins.
Lightness floats all around, encircling the dark.
Darkness settles in, making its stand.
Trading places, the dark pushes back, lightness begins to fade.
The darkness is pierced by the light again.
A stab in darkness’s heart.
The dark pushes back, shattering the light.
A twinkling of light scatters.
The darkness runs toward the light, blocking it once more.
Eclipsing it’s rays and calling in reinforcements.
Darkness gathers again, backlit by the light.
Light streams through the cracks, surviving once more.
The cycle continues, taking up infinite space and time.
Without each other, neither could exist.
Nor could anything else.
Will they ever find their balance?
Gone are the cool early mornings.
Walks are sticky and warm now,
even before the sun rises.
Heat and humidity attack my hair,
turning its strands into damp ringlets
just for stepping outside.
The birds are already active,
singing their morning songs.
The heat doesn’t bother them.
Air conditioning beckons me home, but
I must push on and get back on track,
only one-third the way to my goal.
But man, look at those calves!
Pen to paper, scratch, scratch, scratch. Notes written in haste, important at the time.
Now they no longer make sense. They are just scribbles.
Hands to keyboard, click, clack, click. Emails and documents and meetings on top.
Work spins forward, as does life. But so much time wasted.
Talent and creativity, thrown aside just to meet a deadline. Just deliver on time.
Forcing the workday to end is hard, there is always more to do.
But I need quiet away, a moment to create, to escape, to renew.
The storm quickly approaches. Her knuckles turn white, tightly gripping the wheel.
The ferocious winds howl, racking her car as she tries to stay in her lane.
The waters are rising; she hopes she can make it home in time.
Her car pulls onto the arching bridge and a wind tunnel appears.
The waves and falling rain spin sideways around the bridge and her car.
The tunnel it forms is eerily calm with no wind inside.
The car swiftly moves through the tunnel to the top of the arch.
As she looks forward, she suddenly slams on the breaks.
She gasps as the car skids sideways and stops.
Gratefully, there are no other cars around her.
The other side of the bridge disappears beneath rising waters.
She backs up to the highest point of the bridge,
hoping the waters will not swallow her whole,
and waits.
Gravel crunched beneath her feet as she traveled down the dirt road. Juicy ripe blackberries wound themselves on the barbed wire fence and posts along the road. Picking the berries was precarious business, avoiding the barbs as she plucked them off the vines.
She popped a couple in her mouth as she walked along. Mist hung in the trees on the mountain side as she rounded another curve. The community cemetery lay ahead of her. Should she walk through or around today? Father is buried here, as are much of her ancestry. During the daytime, it isn’t a scary place, but when the sun is sitting low, strange things have been known to happen to passer-throughs.
The sun still was high enough, there should be time to get through. She stepped onto the gravel drive and walked along the upper ridge. The graves were all freshly decorated from the recent holiday. American flags adorn the soldier’s graves, and flowers adorn the tops of many of the headstones, remembrances from their families.
She finds her way down to the valley in the center of the cemetery, and stops for a moment. She sees her Dad’s gravestone and decides to stop and chat for a while. She sits on the grass along side the plot…the place she will likely one day rest. She doesn’t get any chills…so she wonders, Will I actually rest here one day? There’s an old wives tale that says when someone walks across your grave, you get chills. Maybe it doesn’t work if it’s yourself?
The sun starts to drop lower in the distance. She looks up and decides its time to head on. As she stands up, she feels a cool breeze and hears a distance jingling sound. She realizes there is a small dollhouse built above a grave in the distance, up on the next hill. Curiosity piques her interest, so she walks over since it is on the way out.
Outside is a small set of chimes, clanging, caught by the wind. She walks around and sees faded flowers. No one had visited the grave in years. She found the markings indicating it was a small girl. As she turns, a figure in her peripheral moves. A small child in a baby doll dress, holding a rag doll, smiles and waves hello. Nothing scary, just peaceful greetings. As she turns toward the child, the child disappears from view.
The winds calm, the chimes no longer sound. She glances around, thinking her imagination is getting away from her. She starts towards the exit, alert. Maybe it was real. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe the little girl was just happy to know someone stopped to say hi.
She pulled out her blue journal full of crazy thoughts and dreams. She was crushed, and awake, finally, after months of being in a dreamland. She needed to separate what was fantasy from reality. She tore out the most revealing pages from the journal, that beautiful leather bound journal.
Tears rolling down her face, she crumpled them and threw them in the fire. Her words went up in flames. She looked at the tattered book. Its first three signatures in shambles. What to do with it now? The journal was too nice to just throw it away.
She looked at the book. She’d only written on less than 40 pages. There were over 200 pages remaining. She decided to just start over. She found where the signatures were bound to the spine and carefully cut the three damaged sections from it. She tossed the scribbled pages into the fire. May as well start fresh.
Less than a quarter-inch of the interior of the spine was now revealed. Painstakingly, she adjusted the new first page to line up against the interior cover to mend the gap. The book could be mended more easily than her mind or her heart.
She wanted her pages back, but there was no retrieving them from the ashes after the flames consumed them. Now what remains, a blank journal, sits in her bag, beckoning her to come back again.
It was an act of desperation. The thoughts were raw, felt real, creative, and sentimental. She’d grow to regret its destruction, but it was the best she could do at the time.
PING! The ball goes flying, straight for its target.
PLUNK! That one was a total dud.
Red, Yellow, Green. Keeping the goals easy today.
The sun is shining on this warm summer day.
Your turn, now your turn, now your turn again.
Awkward conversation after a fight a month earlier.
Over our brunch, but laughter and smiles by the end.
Mending a family relationship, and a nice start to Sunday.
Tender plumeria blossoming in the late-spring heat.
Their five-petaled flowers slowly unwind and spread out like the sun’s rays.
Yellow and white and pink and orange line our walkway.
Their delicate blooms dance in the afternoon drizzle,
the raindrops roll down the massive leaves.
As the rains grow heavy, the flowers yield,
falling to the ground leaving an aisle of heady fragrance,
With nothing more to do until another round of buds come in.
