Happy Birthday

Dearest Friend,

You are a part of my heart.

I miss your laugh today

hey girls, lets grow old together, okay?

with or without children, with or with out baked bread and sweet iced tea. without a single white picket post in sight.

to simply sit out on porch swings and watch the sun sink over places we've watched so long,

they are a part of our souls

now.

I don't even need the swing.

there will be others too. but you know (that you can count on),

there will always be us.

Where is your(my) plot, what is your(our) syntax?

I had to walk through a wall of water to get to the library today. The library, a bubble for the body as well as the mind. In this third story look out the rain blurs the normally rigid lines of the Aurora bridge, breaks up the smooth curves of cars coursing over it like blood through an artery. It disturbs me for a moment. I can't see, I can't see, I can't see.

Imagine a small dot of water left over on a kitchen table, making its little resistance against the pushing air. That is the inverse of my environment. One film negative in a digital world. This library is...

wait.

I don't have to explain everything, do I?

...

Why, and for what?

"Cathy, I'm lost," I said.

Songs on repeat establish themselves as memories in your mind.

It's true - try it sometime.

Drive down the the road and take any song, any tune will do, and let it play over and over itself on your stereo. Slowly, surely, it will make its mark. A little trail of bread crumbs back to this moment, if you will. And they connect with so many different feelings and situations in your life. Trust me; there is plenty of Paul Simon that has woven itself into the fabric that connects my 16th year to my 17th year, my 18th year to my 19th year, and so on and so forth (at least, that is the projected estimation. troubled waters on the horizons, but you can be my bridge.)

what a rug. or a tapestry, if you want to get all prosey on me now, Carol.

The ear is the slut of the senses. The scent of lilacs reminds me of one thing: childhood houses. Bubble tea only reminds me of Brittany. And just one movie reminds me of teenage lovesick on the couch.

But a song is different. "Don't let them attach themselves to too many memories. It gives them too much power."

I understand now, and wherever we had this conversation - whether in my car or on that park bench - it is finally sifting in.

I need to write everyday. When I don't, I forget to think worthwhile things (not that this blog is an example of worthwhileness...) Instead I sit and watch television shows on a channel that claims to be man's best friend. Well here is the one truth I claim today: That is a lie.

so.. thank God I'm a woman?