soundtrack

I leaned forward and stabbed at the radio button. The hysterical vitamin seller was replaced by music. Ahhhhhhhh. Oldies.
The last notes of a song trailed away and a new one began.
I pulled up to the light and flicked on my turn signal.
A voice began to sing.
Music seemed to well up and surround me and the strangest thing happened.
I remembered.
It was the song.
The music.
It was as though I remembered being nineteen.
No, that's not it.
For a moment, I swear, I WAS nineteen.
I felt such an overwhelming flood of the strongest, sweetest sort of recollection.
I felt the extreme emotion, the extremeness of that age, that moment in time.
It was so potent; passion and angst in equal portions.
The singer just kept on singing and my euphoria changed to tears right on cue as the lyrics shifted.
I cried for two blocks.
Fortunately Gordon Lightfoot followed and jarred me back to my senses.
I rolled my eyes at myself but when I began to sing the song a few miles later, I choked on the words.
Music, the soundtrack of our lives.

black wing

Crows are one of my favourite birds. Isn't it lucky for me that they are everywhere?
Want a challenge? See if you can go an entire day without seeing one.
Good luck.
From my perch in front of the window I can see a crow equally perched on a streetlamp.
It has been preening for several minutes now. Preening with gusto.
A second crow briefly joined it but found the beauty routine too frenzied and drifted off into the mist.
I've never noticed such a high maintenance crow before.
Every feather on each wing has been inspected and adjusted.
The tail has been repeatedly shaken out.
Under the wing, over the wing, up and down and front and back.
And ten and nine, and hold, and lift....
Oh, I get it.
It's not a crow spa, it's a crow gym.
It is readying itself for the acrobatic life it leads in the air.
Wings and feathers are more than beauty accessories to a crow.
They sail the ocean above, 
Black wings against gray sky.

way back

A family often visited a woodsy park.

They liked to lean over the fence and look into the pond.

They liked to wander along the edge of the grassy meadows and explore the trails in the dark woods.

 The boy loved to run and climb.

His sister loved to skip and dance.

Their baby sister watched them.

Each day she grew a little bigger.

She wanted to run and climb too.
She wanted to skip and dance.
The baby had learned to say a few words. She loved to say, ‘down.’ When she said it, her mother or father would take her out of the stroller and let her walk.
The baby loved to walk.
But one day when she was lifted down out of her stroller she didn’t walk.

She ran instead.

‘Grab her,’ sang the mother and the baby smiled.

‘Grab her,’ called the father and the baby chuckled.

‘Grab her,’ shouted the brother and the baby giggled.

‘Grab her,’ squealed the sister and the baby laughed.
Everyone had to run too then.
They ran past the pond and past the meadow.

They ran through the forest on the woodsy path,

They ran past a horse and rider.

Past a woman almost jogging,

Past a hairy man with his hairy dog.

Past a rabbit and a little mouse.

and a huge owl.

“Who, who, who,” said the owl sternly.
The baby stopped running.
She didn’t know how to say her name yet.
Her family caught up to her at last.

They grabbed the little baby and she smiled and chuckled and giggled and laughed.

 And then she rode down the hill on her daddy’s shoulders, all the way back to the beginning.

mystery solved

I propped my grandson's school picture on the mantel for safe keeping. There he was, smiling wistfully at me amidst the Christmas angels and cedar boughs. My eyes traveled almost reluctantly to meet his gaze and I found myself feeling..... sad? Why sad? What a mystery.
A few days passed, and I took his picture down from the mantel, placed it into a frame and perched it on the sideboard in the dining room. It would be at eye level there as we ate.
I felt happy when I looked at his smiling face, his bright sweet face.
I mentioned in passing to my daughter that evening that I had framed his picture and placed it in the dining room. "He looked so small and alone on the mantel," I said, my voice catching.
Mystery solved.

like a smile

Darkness has settled like a cloak.
Down the avenue, street lights dimly glow; a row of moons ever smaller.
I can't tell where the sky ends or the street begins.
What a difference the clock has made.
This morning the sky brightened like a smile.
A jet trailed sunlight behind it and became the tail of a comet across the morning sky.

very truly

Year-1951
Place- Grandma and Grandpa's yard.
Focal point of picture- the toys, THE FABULOUS HANDMADE TOYS
My grandma has gathered her grandchildren in like a flock of chicks. My brother and sister are perched on her lap and my oldest sister is doing the 'lean.'
It's a pretty cute picture all in all; sweet matchy, matchy dresses, my brother's little farmer boy overalls, the old log house, the tree stump chair, but truly, very truly, the thing that makes my heart beat faster is the wooden wagon and little cloth doll.
Oh my goodness!
I want that doll.
Wouldn't it be adorable with a striped body and antennae? Like a bee?
And that wagon just charms my socks off.
I want that too.
Would reproductions be OK?
Yep!

hasn't changed

Isn't this photo funny?
It may have been snapped more than seventy years ago but some things don't change;
There are those who toil, and those who look on.
I love how dear and thin my grandpa looks.
And I love that my grandma is working along side him.
They are completely absorbed in their task.

The twenties and thirties were desperate decades.
People made do.
They saved things.
And patched things.
Being resourceful was a survival skill.
And that's something else that hasn't changed.