friends and family

Montage

/ wvfurandroot / 1 Comment

I’m standing on the beach at Kaneohe Air Station.  I’m 9. The wind blows my hair, and the sun has warmed the smooth lava beneath my feet. The sky is blue but also filled with clouds and the ever-present Hawaiian rainbow. The tidepools are full after the liquid sunshine that we called the short rains of a typical Hawaiian day. I am alone and reveling in my newfound freedom. I am allowed to roam. And I do. I pick my way…

Down the aisle of the school bus. He is sitting on the back bench. I think he is saving a seat for me. We will hold sweaty hands too shy to look at one another…

I look up and see my first love ambling down the street carrying a large heart-shaped box of Whitman chocolates. I scramble down the apple tree and race to him, engulfing and engulfed in a hug as expansive as…

The back pasture of a farm in East Lynn. The hay is green, and the Appalachian sky is crystalline it’s so clear. Again, I am alone. I am free to roam, but my life allows so few alone times that I relish them. The daisies, nearly three feet tall, are blooming. I have a paper due but I’m in love with…

The passion of my life. We stand on the pier at Okauchee Lake. He towers over me. His piercing blue eyes soft for once and the cold night whipping his dark hair around. He leans down to kiss me after I say yes and his beard scratches my face, but I love it. I love him, but we don’t marry. Fate intervenes and…

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Glimmer

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Early mornings on the balcony of the rented condo.  I have, quietly so others can sleep, made a pot of coffee, and poured a cup.

The cool morning air ruffles the hem of my nightgown and I sip coffee as the sun rises.  Its warmth matching the colors of the sky – red and orange and gold – glimmers of light bouncing off the water.

My skin is tight and pink from yesterday’s sun and my hair is wild from restful sleep to the rhythm of the tide. I smell like coconuts and vanilla.

I get up for a second cup of coffee and my phone.  I want a photo of this sunrise, just like yesterday and just like tomorrow.  Each seems a mystery just for me.  From darkness comes light and then color and then awe.  I try to capture it never quite succeeding.  I should get the good camera, but I’m too lazy to fool with lenses and aperture and fstops.  The morning is too easy, too wrapped in zen for doing.

Every day, on the balcony, bearing witness to the glimmers of peace.  Of hope.  Of tranquility. Steeped in a cup of good coffee, its warmth echoing the sun. Every year the journey to the beach with good friends.  Laughter and good food and strong sun.  The occasional storm in which the mysteries of the universe ramp up the glimmer and it explodes, wiping the sand clean of footprints.

Witnessed from the balcony – my place in the early morning, my place in the evening.  I begin and end my days with glimmer – sunlight on the water, moonlight on the water, the phosphorescence of breaking waves.

Glimmer.

Twenty-nine Palms

/ wvfurandroot / 1 Comment

I expected to love the desert.

I was born in Twenty-nine Palms, California which is part of the Joshua Tree National Forest. 

Robert Plant wrote a song titled 29 Palms. 

I feel the heat of your desert heart
(Feel the heat of your desert heart)
Leading me back down the road that leads back to you.

We left that part of California when I was very small.  I have no memory of the place.  We did drive through the Painted Desert on our way back from Hawaii, but it was night and didn’t leave much of an impression.

Thus, I hadn’t seen my birthplace since a year or so after my birth. 

I had the opportunity nine years ago to go there and I did.  I have a photo of me at what was basically the Visitors Center for Twenty-nine Palms.  For some reason, they had a metal sculpture of Cinderella’s pumpkin coach. 

I am not making this up.

I have a photo.

The Cinderella Coach was the highlight.  Well, it tied with the small oasis. 

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Earthing

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Warmth and sun, oh how I need it.  I have slid the cover of the moonroof back on my car.  My commute this morning should be glorious.  The window itself is closed but light will flood the car. 

Oh, how my pineal gland needs the stimulation. Homemade vitamin D coursing through my body.  I will almost be able to hear the birdsong off in the woods as I rumble down the interstate. I will take the exit through the park today to check out the gardens and trees of the rich folk.  I expect daffodils and redbud and pear.  Perhaps the dogwood will be starting. 

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