Sunday, June 12, 2005

All Summer In A Day (Or Two) 

Coming off the best kind of three-day bender this evening -- a little rewarding yet mellow work, a little beer on the balcony with old friends, a little more work and a too-late evening swatting mosquitoes in the midst of a raging party, trading partners throughout, feeling like the eye of a storm and loving it.

A constant buzz and an unseasonable humidity made this year's Reunion weekend a smash kick-off to a summer mode traditionally only fully realized during our week volunteering at Falcon Ridge Folk Festival. A precarious wrong-turn road trip up Putney Mountain in the weekend's borrowed van followed by a marina-side supper afterwards with great friend Michelle and her equally-great one-year Zinnia only promised to sustain the blossom of summerhood.

In any other year, such an early onset would be welcomed. But there is so much unknown this year: no job, no home, no savings; no severance beyond August, no plans beyond July. Job-but-not-vocation employment possibilities flash by in the paper, arrive in the mail, grow stale on my desk. I hear from the grapevine that my cover letters have been too long, too wordy, too intimidating.

Gone fishin? Or fish or cut bait? Regenerate, or attack? Halfhearted, or broken-hearted?

Willow couldn't sleep tonight because the neighborhood kids were being too loud chasing fireflies in the community gardens behind the house. Says Willow:

My old friend Max poured my bubbles in his truck and I was sad. Sometimes when a kid does something I don't like I have to hit them -- I have to! I don't like my old friends. I want to find my new friends and not play with my old friends anymore.

And so we lay there for a while side by side in the drowned-out darkness, listening to the life we love screaming in the yard outside, ever receding. She tried to sing along to Kenny Loggins for a while, I tried to stop crying. Neither of us were successful.

Eventually, she slept.

Daddy will find us another neighborhood, kid. Promise. I just need a little time, that's all. And you can be my luck, okay?

posted by boyhowdy | 10:05 PM |

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