Today I promised myself that I would make all manner of things
like blood orange curd
and bread for guests tomorrow
and finish a few necklaces
and
and
a
n
d
.
.
.
instead I sit here reminiscing...
it's nice.
I am running around the high school track at 11 years old listening to my walkman, in it a tape of Rick Astley singing "It would take a strong strong man to ever let you go"
rewinding over and over again to hear the drum machine beginning so my endorphins could
send my feet flying faster...
I have vivid memories of my very very bad/delicious high school boyfriend
arriving in Ohio to take me on a weekend of apology spoiling at the end of my freshman year of college
.
It was totally chaste and awesome; he picked me up in his big old yellow VW bus with the Charlie Brown stripes
we swam in a reservoir
ate roadside strawberries until our stomaches were aching
went to diners...
it was late May in Ohio with the lingering amber-fresh evenings
and I remember thinking after he dropped me off and puttered back to Pennsylvania
that we all wish someone would show up at our door and say, "I was such a fool - you were great and I am sorry"
and here it was, the ultimate non-verbal speech
done as only he could have...
Soon after this I am walking home from the N train while living in Queens,
the cold air of early spring or late fall
the exhilaration of somehow surviving the adventure of it all for another month
aimless
and bold in my gorgeous youth...
the men on their milk crates with their canes and mustaches
talking into evening
The lights from the ground on every night flight
I took alone
as I traversed the country for love or family or work
all of these years
so much space in between the places people live so far below...
Here in my body
another waits for his own memories to be made
though he will experience his life so differently.
It's the crest of a hill I am reaching for here in these last weeks of gestation,
the understanding that I will grow old
and live vicariously through a generation whose upswing I will experience firsthand...
I hope I am the 'cool' mom.
I hope I make him happy
and I pray that life treats him with such goodness that he too spends his Sunday afternoons
remembering moments of loveliness that led up to this one
like reflections
climbing facets in the light...
