I was bereft of inspiration, and on top of that
I had to bring my little girl over to the pre-k
and leave her crying and
yelling "mommmmmmy...I want to stay with yoooooou"
and even though I completely recognized in her voice
and her carriage
a touch of the "putting on", of the slipping this costume of bereftness
over her purple dress, and trying on the whole idea of being lost
without me,
still,
I know her.
And she was and was not
feeling it.
I was feeling it.
I was hot and cloudy and hoping
that if I just scooped her up
and out of there
all would be ok.
But, alas,
I'm no spring chicken.
And I know that she will be ok,
and that I need to leave her.
So I went,
listening through the closed,
single paned windows,
as my little purple-dressed girl,
wailed inside.
::
I turned right instead of left,
and with my camera on the seat
next to me, like a puppy,
I drove to the one place I would always go,
given a chance.
And my puppy and I got out and went for a walk,
and bought some bread,
and took many, many pictures of flowers,
and vegetables and then on the way out,
pulled over in front of the "no parking" sign,
right next to the "electric fence" sign,
and looked and laughed at the geese, honking
at I don't know what. But they certainly all agreed
that one particular thing deserved
honking at. (And by the way, they are not all the same,
at all. They are all sorts of colors and with stripes even,
and some are definitely cuter than others. Something to do
with the placement of their eyes, I decided.
Although they all honk the same.)
And then one hit me on the head.
One acorn, and another and another-not all hitting me
on the head, but all over the place, and all different
and perfect, even though many of them lose their caps
when they fall from the tree.
I had the impulse to glue the caps back on.
Isn't that ridiculous?
Why do I always want to fix things
so that they are just so, again?
And scooping them up,
and meaning to take them home,
I felt that I had found some sort of treasure
and that the girl
who runs the childrens' programs,
(and who was very pregnant the last time I saw her,)
was going to stop me and say I couldn't have those acorns.
They need to stay here. They belong to the farm.
But she just smiled and waved, and called out "how are the girls?"
and drove away,
no doubt to pick up that baby of hers.
And so I turned back toward the car,
walked away from the geese,
with a handful of acorns,
and went back to the place from which I had come.
And picked up my smiling,
purple-dressed girl.
Inspiration found.
Enjoy the weekend. Thanks for reading.
tt
