Distraction

Donations will be accepted. Via Sandberg. 

My Own Personal Jesus

My sister Sarah and I, November 1998. Arizona.

Someone I knew in college is in hospice, nearing the end of his life.  We were friendly, in the same, unusually tight knit major in a smaller Midwestern university.  Many of us had our sights set on gracing the airwaves of television or radio or of making movies. It was a special kind of place and time and even then I recognized that our group, traveling together toward adulthood and careers, was unique, our experience so entirely different from that of my psychology, business and PE major roommates. I knew each and every single fellow student in my major, we all did, from sophomores to seniors. We would see other in class in the morning, later in the master control room or television studio, renting equipment, in the edit bays in the evening and then at the bars at midnight. 

Tom was athletic and tall, kind, he had a great smile that always seemed to have a chuckle dangling from the end of it, he had a swagger.

From the pictures, I see that he has a beautiful wife and three little boys. And he's losing a battle to brain tumors and cancer that he has been fighting since 2003. 

My sister Sarah died in 2001 at the age of 24. Because she was my baby sister, I will always see her in pig tails, and she stayed pretty, she modeled,  she had the most wonderful smile that always connected to a sparkle in her eyes. She fought the demon epilepsy from first grade on, when an ambulance came to our elementary school and rushed her away. Seizures interuppted everything she ever tried to do from that day forward.

Six months before she died she told me she wouldn't live to see age 30. I feel asleep with her in her bed that night in the big city apartment in the big city life she was determined to live all by herself.  I didn't want to leave, I told her she was wrong.  



She wasn't. Now, eleven years later, I can't remember the sound of her voice.


I grew up kneeling next to my mom in church every Sunday. I can recite "Our Father" and "The Creed" - We Believe in One God - prayers, the words spill out of my lips in unison with a church full of people almost subconsciously. Since adulthood though, for reasons so many or not so much, I only attend church on Christmas Eve or when I feel the pull to the Place or the symbolism of the candles in times of need.



Any God I ever found in church, I brought in myself -- Alice Walker



When I need clarity, I pray to my Grandma Zora, she who may have subtly taught me that Alice Walker philosophy on religion,  sitting on her front porch or in her corner rocking chair overlooking the backyard, making priorities all seem so simple, You don't need much Jenny, you really don't, hardly much t'all.  Her presence tells me to relax, to laugh, to snap the dead tips off the petunias. 
 

When I seek direction, when I need to lead, when I need confidence, I pray to my Grandma Charlotte, beside me at the wheel of a blue Plymouth Duster, with a wand of mascara and a tube of red lipstick and a party platter of sandwiches. 

Sarah, with Weaver's Needle in the distance. 

When I need a friend, when I'm feeling weak, when I'm lost and when everything is okay too, I pray to my sister Sarah, playing beside me as child, walking beside me as an adult, on an Arizona trail.
 

No, I can't hear her voice, the sound of it. But I can feel her,  she's always right here with me, every second of every day.


My own personal Jesus.

So, Tom, old friend from the past, I am praying for you, for a miracle, I am praying to my Gods like Sarah, Zora and Charlotte, I am praying for those who know you still and love you,  that you be well, so you don't have to leave so soon.

Miss you, Sare

That's So You

(Ping Pong table, Chateau Marmont. Photo by David Swanson)

I was pinning. He saw me pin this image. He said, "That's so you."

This is one for my Scenery department, a visual prop that I will weave into some story, plop a handful of people into...or just a couple...


Their eyes met, and he gestured at the table, had a ball in mid air aiming at her before she could take her position.


"Ah! Hey!" Her drink sloshed, held up in defense. She giggled. "Hold on, hold on..." Another sip. "Hydration. Okay," she set the drink down, picked up a paddle, nodded, got serious. 


"That was a foul ball, according to international table tennis rules."


He laughed. "Just warming up."


She thought about that, knotted her hair with itself into a bun at the nape of her neck.


"I believe talking is also a violation of the rules." She squinted, struck a dramatic pose, laughed again.
Under her breath, "Not that I'm one to play by the rules. Ready?"

Summer Vacation

The hydrangea blossoms are bobbing softly in the breeze.  The cedar trees swaying like a day dreaming 6 year old, content, thoughts dancing around in their head, to a far away tune.  Damp, sweet and musky perfume rises from the forest floor. The maples, the birches, the oaks clap lightly every now and then, their response to the most perfect breeze coming up off the lake.

The fields are alternately the color of gold or green, strong corn pushing through, and bursts of red punctuate the cherry trees.

The sky isn’t quite blue, not quite grey or white, but that hazy July 6^th color that comes with this heat.

And the heat, it isn’t a pest, because the Great Lake beacons, always just off in the distance, shiny and sparkly and blue, calming everyone. Its okay, you’re at the Lake. Good thing we’re at the Lake, hate to be in the City I heard it was 105 downtown. Just jump in. Oh... there’s the breeze.

My clan and I have sun kissed cheeks, nose tips, shoulders, and an ease that comes with frequent dips in the water and ice cream and lemonade and bonfires. At days end, their little toes and knees and fingers are brown and sand castles with seagull feather spires at the empty beach waste away.  Pockets of sand unfurl from damp bathing suits into the car, onto the bathroom floor, the tub, into our sheets at night.  Oh my goodness girls, look like how much sand is in the tub.

When I drive, I can’t help but roll my car windows down, my left arm and hand stuck out, greeting the road ahead, a mast and sail, pushing foward, protecting the past.

Hey this day, this life, my world,  my family, Summer, I love you.

I want to live forever, I’m going to do nothing but work on that.  

But when I die, I hope it is Summer Vacation in my Heaven.  All the time. 

A Vehicle

B saw his old truck today. In a blur past the bank. He didn't want to lose sight of her, the truck.

It's a she in my head, a maroon red 1995 Toyota Forerunner LTD, SHE.

A blur from the past, he felt a ping and a panic, described feeling like he'd seen a ghost.  He chased after and found her.  Resting in the parking lot at the burger place, waiting for her owner who isn't us to come back out.

Yup. The same truck. The odd little identifiers like that back bumper cord thing and the roof rack essentially the equivalents of tattoos or birthmarks that meant, ya, ya, I'm your old truck, I'm the one. The "Before Kids" Sports Utility Vehicle.

He took a picture of her sitting there. I imagine they had a conversation.

"Hey, hey, I'm didn't desert you! I had to!" "You see, the kids...we have kids now...and you kept needing work and it didn't make sense. No air bags..."

I remember the afternoon we picked up her up from the car lot together in Phoenix.  It was the good kind of a warm day for Arizona, a Saturday afternoon and we were giggly about the beige leather seats and the sun roof. And the stereo which made U2 and DMB and Sting sound really good when cranked loud, his right hand and my left always squeezed tight, as we put on the miles and headed out on different adventure each Saturday. A different destination every Sunday. And so many Happy Hours in between.

And so there it was, a 4W Drive time capsule of another place and another time and different lives in a parking lot at the burger place a mile-and-a-half away.

I wish I could track her back down. I wish I could pull a miracle and get the keys and bring her back to him and to us.  Really, I rarely drove her so she might be skeptical. But I get it. She wasn't just an automobile like the Blazer, the Tercel, the Saab, the Highlander, the Matrix or the eight passenger mini-van sitting in the garage. She wasn't just transporting us to the grocery store or work or T ball games. She literally took us to the tops of mountains, to the ocean, to the hub of a monsoon thunderstorm in the desert.  She will be forever be associated with the young us, the best of us, of him and me. US. Everyone has those times, those memories. Wouldn't it be nice to take them for a drive once a week?

Close your eyes, okay? (I'm pretending.)
Here, here, I got her back.
Happy Anniversary. Happy Father's Day. Let's go for a ride. Let's go catch a thunderstorm.

Our Summer List

Catch fireflies.

Tally rainbows.

Make ice cream.

Eat ice cream.

Run.

Ride a horse, whenever possible.

Pick strawberries.

Ride our bikes.

Playdates with school friends.

Playdates with mommy and daddy's friends.

Camp in the backyard at the cottage. For practice. 

Fireworks

Parade.

Sand dunes.

Sand castles.

Make time for dates. Cheap ones.

Free ones.

Sit under the moon. 

Together.

Ride a boat.

Fall asleep in the sun.

With sunscreen on.

Put the cell phones away.

Walk through a cornfield.

Don't go too far.

Go to the Zoo.

A lot.

Listen to live music, outdoors.

Dance.

Hike new trails.

Make new trails.

And a fort.

Catch a frog or a turtle.

Visit for a short while.

Butterflies.

Three! Birthday cakes!

Friday night family walks to the playground.

Star gaze.

Saturday morning Farmer's Market breakfasts.

Learn to swim. Once and for all.

That means you.

Backyard bonfire in the City, once a month.

S'mores.

Bonfire at the cottage, every night.

S'mores.

Homemade pizza with our own basil and tomatoes.

Take a train ride.

Host a Lemonade Stand.

Star gaze.

Visit The Farm.

Pretend we live there. 

Cheeseburgers at PC Junction afterwards.*

(*Paid for by the Lemonade Stand.)

Hunt for driftwood. 

Craft Projects twice monthly. 

Get messy.

Star gaze. Some more.

Go to the State Fair.

Send Zoe off to sea.

Promise to throw her a stick any time we find ourselves at the water's edge.

Star gaze again.

Remind ourselves that summer won't last forever.

Find more heart shaped rocks.