So I turned in my black slingbacks, walked down St. Andrews Bay Boulevard, breathed in the salt-laden air.

No more waiting for what I don’t know, or less than I understand.

Split avocados.

Watermelon past its sweet.

Five minutes over limit, the parking meter unrelenting.

Unforgiven.

No change to pay the ticket, hostage held under the left windshield wiper.

So come on, wrap that Caribbean blue scarf, silk and neck-bound.

Hug those curves, Vespa tight, between Italy’s Santa Maria di Leuca and Otranto against white stone cliffs, fast dipping the Mediterranean Sea.
And wait, really Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn deja vu?

Mais non.

No more dreaming. What I want, now is real.

right here, right now...over the rainbow, skies are blue.

Arriving late to Seattle, waiting for a taxi to take me home, weathering the unexpected snowstorm.

“I’ve been driving back and forth all day. No worries.”

The driver said, front seat, miles away from my tomorrow plans. 2 am, the morning I left my life.

So I didn’t very much, worry, that is, until then. When he drove his car over tall hills and down around curves on Mercer Way, sliding near trees black crouching by.

“And, you’re sure, are you, you can get over First Hill?”
(After all, the first may sometimes not be.)

And I sat. Still in the back seat. Waiting while he slid, cruise controlling toward fear.

Then, “you get out here.”
Far too soon, I think, but simply say, “Not here. There.”

Me, catching breath as it comes. He, silently driving, then stops. I open the door to the silent night, wind, fierce, freezing my ears. Hands. Face.

My bag, heavy on my shoulder. My mind grips its thought of warm house, hot coffee. Blue blanket, still and tight.
And just about then, when I think I’m falling–
In fact, just as yes, harder than I ever did before.

Not even trying to smile, I just say,”But it’s okay. It’ll be fine,”

Just like I always do–

Instead, I hurt, feel what I felt at the circus when I was eight, striking a blow on the strongman hammer, watching it sink all the way up to the sky. Pain so sharp, it holds my breath.

I want it back; I’ve never before fallen. Except maybe in love. Or possibly life.
But never in the snow, when I least expected to lose my balance, just before I made it inside, by the fireplace, with coffee in my yellow Texas mug.

My son lives and works in Montgomery, my daughter in Dallas, Texas. I love my children. My parents still live in their home in Anniston. My dad grows a garden; my mother cans vegetables and makes scuppernong jelly. I love my parents.

My love is true. He speaks the words I have always said to myself. I could become trapped by the way things could, are supposed to be. My love ensures I am true. True to what I think and say and want to believe.

Each day presents opportunities and challenges:  my intent is to live with clarity and purpose. To live intentionally. So that when I die, I won’t doubt that I have lived.

But hadn’t she used the word– closure, wasn’t that all she said she needed? Only one way to know. And after all, wasn’t it more about appeasing his conscience than anything else?

God, she was so naive. In some ways, innocent. In other ways, disconcerting.  Just a nice way to say she didn’t get it.

After all, it’s the twenty-first century. Who thinks that way any more? When you’re not seventeen?

And, really, isn’t the only thing worse than saying goodbye to someone you maybe love is not realizing that the last time you see her is the last time you ever will?

From that point forward, you rely on the shape of forgetting.

And oh, I could tell you her name, but it doesn’t matter. You already know.

the sky cerulean,

the bones, lovely in sunshine.