My back

I have a certain friend. She's in my court, on my side, in my stable, however you want to phrase it, but she's there. She is. Right. Beside. Me.

There's a path I'm walking now, a path that is rocky for me. Rocky and emotional. Rocky and unstable. Rocky and slippery. I can't see my next step for all the damn rocks.

She can see, and she tells me. She warns me, Watch out for that rock. And right after I tell her that there is no rock, I trip over its presence.

Tonight I sat beside her and scratched her back. She's that kind of friend, the kind that touches your heart and mind and breaks the barrier so that you find yourself holding hands or hugging or crying, or scratching her back.

Tonight, just about that friendship. Just about that good.

There's a phrase or a saying, whatever, but it's about your back being covered. As if in battle, or maybe love. You are safe. She has your back. Or you're scratching hers.

That's this friend.

Taking the long way home

Leaving work, I glance at the freeway and can't find the heart to join the jam of cars heading nowhere fast. Instead, I take a road that will take longer to get home but will be more pleasing, a road that winds its way through Houston and, as it is, my life.

I take the road that carries me past the stadium where I spent high school Saturday nights at football games, dressed in red and white, braided hair, stolen beer in my purse, supporting my team, relishing my innocence and clinging to my need to belong.

It's a road that takes me past the neighborhood pool where I first jumped from a high dive, a pool where I spent countless summer days and must have driven my mother around the bend with Watch me Mom, watch this, when I did nothing more than jump from the side of the pool and yet required a look from her face that radiated, You are the most amazing child ever.

I believed her.

I still do.

I drive a road that takes me past the first house I lived in. I turn down the street and pull up to the house. I see Christmas through the windows, I see Santa Claus. I glance through the front windows and into the back yard. I see Fourth of July celebrations. I see my father coming home from work and a young me jumping up to hug him and snuggling into the cold air-conditioning lingering on his shirt collar. I see him placing his hat in the hall closet. I notice the tall Magnolia and remember when it was planted. I see my mother consoling me when I sobbed at the bay window, watching my brother and sister walking to school, devastated I could not do the same.

I see my Grandmothers there. I see myself learning to read.

I reach out for them, for me, but we are gone.

Driving on, I stop to visit Mom. She's small, frail, voiceless. I'm losing her. She reminds me of lace. Beautiful and delicate. Timeless. She sleeps. I place my fingers on her face, gently caress her cheek, kiss her forehead. She has no idea, but I know. It's enough, because it has to be.

I drive on.

I drive the bend and pass the neighborhood we next moved to, pass the three lakes that were our secret. I roll down the windows and smell the musty, wet air of the water. I recall breaking the rules and riding my pony into the water. I recall not blinking when told I did not belong there.

I remember the sign, No horses allowed, and I remember why it was erected.

I remember being a bit of a rebel in my youth. I remember wanting to belong but being selective nonetheless. I remember backing out of Girl Scouts, explaining to my very disappointed parents that I would rather be alone and riding my pony after school than make a purse from an empty milk jug.

I drive on, passing the country club where I attended day camp for four summers, and Mom played tennis for many many years. The club where I danced with my father at parties, shared brunches in celebration of Mom, or Easter, and shared family dinners on many Wednesday nights in my past.

This road, it takes me past the stables where I boarded my horse, the stables I spent six years of my life almost daily, in my love affair with all things equine, and along the way discovered boys and forged a friendship I carry to this day. The stables and the horse that put my parents in deep debt in hopes I would not follow my sister's footsteps.

Good decision on their part. I found my own path.

Eventually, the road takes me to my home. I turn the key and pause. My heart is filled with the best of yesterday, the knowledge of my mother's peaceful slumber, and not an ounce of stress from too long sitting in traffic.

I have learned that when you slowly lose a parent, your vision looks back more often than foreword. I have learned to accept the view. It's like light on water.

You were there

Three dreams I had about you last night.

It's an odd feeling I have today, those dreams are running around my head as if they really happened, as if I'm recalling a memory. And when I think about them, as I've been doing for the most part of the morning, I cannot help but smile.

And blush.

What I'm trying to figure out is how you knew which room I was in, and why you opened the door the way you did.

Maybe it was the text that got this started. Who knows? But I do hope to see you again tonight.

She and I would like to thank him

Today is the birthday of E.B. White. You may know him as the author of Charlotte’s Web, or The Elements of Style, a book that was first introduced to me in high school English, and then on more than one required textbook list in my college days. That book is so consice and complete that I refer to it still today. I have a copy on my desk at home and a copy on my desk at work.

Charlotte’s Web was one of my favorite stories as a young girl. It still is today. My favorite though, from Mr. White et al, is The Trumpet of the Swan. That book stands a notch above Charlotte and my other two beloved childhood books, Misty of Chincoteague, and of course, Stormy, Misty’s Foal. All Newbery Medal winners.

The Trumpet of the Swan hooked me on reading. I felt protective over Louis, born without a voice, and I worried about him just as his father did, and I connected with the young boy, Sam, because I too wanted to help Louis through his handicap. The book was a page-turner of compassion and loyalty, of the triumph of positive thinking and hard work over hardship.

More important than getting wrapped up in the story was that I discovered in those pages a love of reading. I remember one line from the book still, Tonight I heard Louis's horn. My father heard it, too. The wind was right, and I could hear the notes of taps, just as darkness fell. There is nothing in all the world I like better than the trumpet of the swan. I remember how I felt when I read that line, how I heard a trumpet and could see the darkness. I remember being transported. And even though I hadn't once actually heard a Trumpeter Swan, I remember agreeing as I read those words, I too liked nothing better in the world than that sound.

I cried when I finished the book, unsure for a moment how to go on without Sam and Louis. My mother suggested that I didn't have to, that I could re-read the book. And so I did.

To this day, any time I hear a brass horn, I fondly recall a young goose named Louis with a chalkboard around his neck and perseverence in his heart, and a little girl named Alison who, through his story, fell in love with words and reading.

Thank you Mr. White.

Sunday, little brown bed hog, Sunday

This rain

This rain is constant. The sky churns from an ominous dark to an equally threatening gray and back again. Lightning pierces the horizon and thunder rumbles through the clouds. I know that way up there the sun is shining. But down here, it's rivers and streams rapidly flowing to the lowest spots, rushing their way into the gutters. It's slick streets and soggy land. It's moody and dark, this rain is, and very against my spending any time outside. Rain is the weather rebel, the playground bully who kicks sand in your plans by suddenly becoming interested in tetherball just as you're reaching for the rope. Yeah, that's rain. Stealing your plans, staying way longer than welcome, always demanding attention, making sure that everyone is talking about it. Even a good thing, a nourishing thing, a thing that other parts of the country need desperately, can be too much, can make itself no longer welcome, at least for a while. I've reached that point with this rain. I reached it five minutes ago. I want to play tetherball, dammit, and I don't appreciate the bully breaking into my plans.

Two things unchanging, one thing timeless

1. My luggage is still missing. Each time I contact the airline, I get a new bit of information that no one has taken it upon his or herself to inform me of during any of the seventy other times I've called. It's as if each time I call, I'm calling a different company.

2. It's been raining at least every day -- and maybe every night, I'm not sure since I'm sleeping then -- since I've been home. Not only is the ground soggy, the air is soggy.

That second bit has left me with ample time to organize my vacation photos. Below, Venice.

Redundant signage

I was looking over my vacation photos earlier today and when I came across one of the waiting area for the water taxi to take us to Venice, I noticed along the pedestrian ramp written in Italian and English the message "Thank you for choosing us."

Which is sort of funny since, on that side, they are the only ones.

Ten percent wrong is still ninety percent right

The editors of the American Heritage dictionary recently compiled a list of "100 words they recommend every high school graduate should know." Not feeling challenged enough these days, I decided to give myself a test. How did my vocabulary stack up against what is recommended that high school graduates know? Turns out I'm okay. Not great, mind you, but a low A is an A all the same.

abjure abrogate abstemious acumen antebellum auspicious belie bellicose bowdlerize chicanery chromosome churlish circumlocution circumnavigate deciduous deleterious diffident enervate enfranchise epiphany equinox euro evanescent expurgate facetious

fatuous feckless fiduciary filibuster gamete gauche gerrymander hegemony hemoglobin homogeneous hubris hypotenuse impeach incognito incontrovertible inculcate infrastructure interpolate irony jejune kinetic kowtow laissez faire lexicon loquacious

lugubrious metamorphosis mitosis moiety nanotechnology nihilism nomenclature nonsectarian notarize obsequious oligarchy omnipotent orthography oxidize parabola paradigm parameter pecuniary photosynthesis plagiarize plasma polymer precipitous quasar quotidian

recapitulate reciprocal reparation respiration sanguine soliloquy subjugate suffragist supercilious tautology taxonomy tectonic tempestuous thermodynamics totalitarian unctuous usurp vacuous vehement vortex winnow wrought xenophobe yeoman ziggurat

Sunday, she can't stand the rain, Sunday