Little big things

-The time Becky had a dart in her calve, I can see the shape of the
drip of blood so clearly.
- When everyone died during Olden Days, and left me alive, to live and
play alone. That feeling still haunts me.
- Something about the red bike and a broken pane of glass. I think I
lied, but I honestly don't remember if I actually lied, or just felt
like I was getting in trouble for lying.
- Anytime Dad swore. Didn't happen that much. This one time, his voice
broke as he said "fuck", and I knew it was serious.
- The house full of cousins. Beds made of folded up comforters and
miss-matched bed linens. The smell of coffe in the morning.
- Reading. Oh the agony of just wanting to play outside after dinner,
and having to stay and take turns reading from the King James version!
I always imagined that the smell of the sofa cushions was from
people's butts, and farting on the couch.
- Panda bear ice cream.
- Staring out the backseat window and suddenly realizing that I am me,
and these people are my family, and the digital time display was
something real. And I snapped in and out of my body a lot. I still do.
- That picture of Cinderella dancing with Charming in our mailorder
book. That room looked so beautiful, and I wished she had brown hair,
like me.
_ The awful spare room in Grandma and Grandpa Light's basement. The
weird window that filtered light through the storage room, and the
wood paneling that looked like a thousand eyes watching you.

I hope I have a receptive soul.

I love the smell of poplar trees.
I didn't realize it until the other day when I was crunching through
some leaves. The smell reminded me of Berlin.
It was spring when I was there, and the poplar kernels had fallen on
the path along the canal. I remember really isolating that smell.
Peppery and sweet. It reminded me of being a kid at the Canyon Meadows
house.
We had a big poplar tree in our back yard, the kind that was easy to
climb. It's gone now, but it was good tree.
In the fall, our yard was covered in those big yellow leaves. What joy
it was to gather them up and lay in a big pile of that peppery
sweetness. The cold prairie afternoon biting at our cheeks and
fingers.

I am reading about lonliness and solitude. Meditating on it, because
that's what Henri Nouwen demands when you read his writings. I love
him.

"From now on, wherever you go, or wherever I go, all the ground
between us will be holy ground."

The hill.

They have bulldozed the hill by Science World.
The hill we rolled down that night in 2008. Remember drinking
Jameson's and rolling? Four bodies. Arms and legs and arms and legs
and arms. A messy laughing pile at the bottom. Reminding me that it's
ok to not be dignified sometimes.
Or the day we talked for hours about Harry Potter. Or the day we just
sat and read on blankets in the sun. Or just by myself when company
wasn't sought or found.
Anyway, that hill is gone now. It's just a pile of dirt and diggers.
Progress can't be stopped.
They were carrying away a big tree on a flatbed truck. It looked tied
down, restrained and very unhappy. Poor tree. Poor hill.
And I think about Cat Stevens songs.