It's Spring Break here ... and the town is deserted. Deserted like we coulda skipped church yesterday and who was there would know we were at the beach.  On the drive over the kids were talking about how this street shuts down two way operations and devotes itself to cars coming in for tailgating.  Our town gorges and purges based on University scheduling.  They talked about how it might look from the air ... the traffic flowing like ants moving in single-minded unison towards the hill ... they laughed at the serious mindlessness of it all.
This morning I looked at myself in the mirror.  Looked ... really looked.  Do I look okay from the back, I wondered, because I'm getting ready for a long walk ... the dog draws more then enough attention, which he loves, and I don't mind as long as it's focused on him.  He is an awesome beast.  I'm wearing what I might normally wear only at the beach.  My hair is all on its own and other then a dab of sunscreen and dark glasses, my face will be bare.  Ummm ... it's the real me ... I'm feeling sorta suspended in the day and I would like to be as true to myself as possible for whatever it might hold.  I look at my eyes ... they are flat where they normally spark ... yeah, not sparkle, sparkle is reserved for laughing moments, which seem to be too few ... the lids are puffy.  And ... I remember I was crying last night.  Briefly, not with sorrow but  too near to the faint shadow of that bitterness that I run from.  Ah, bitterness ... worse then just plain ole sorrow, it cuts deep on a woman's face.  I shrug.  Can't be helped.  Not really.  I can, and almost always do, avoid the alcohol induced puffiness that swells my next morning eyes, though I understand why some women don't.  Not that kind of puffy ... good girl ... at least there is consolation in that ... I'm doing (and not doing) what I can.
And I think about yesterday, in the car with who/what will be an almost entire church pew full of my people, about those ant/vehicles each one a tiny little thought swarming towards what they value the most.  These tiny particles carrying thoughts of ... big and little daily "to dos" ... laundry, dishes, still leaves now that insidious pollen to blow from the back porch, and on the front porch, the rose vine with its first sweet smelling pink blooms of the season ... reminding me of my internal landscape and those others that I labor to tend ... . Front and back, under our roof, surfaces I polish for the souls supported there.

I'm thinking about the vine ... mostly vine ... supported by invisible lines, invisible like thoughts, guiding it where it should be.  And the horse on the video yesterday ... scared useless ... evolving from the image of what might be towards highly prized.  My dog running wild, unheeding could terrorize my old frail neighbors ... yet he makes tiny choices which vault him to highly prized ... he listens to my whispering voice ... he watches my wishes.  The horse and the dog supported by invisible lines like thoughts guiding them ... valued.

I do most of my serious thinking at the beach ... where the deep laps over behind and lines out ahead, I walk without "to dos",  I rest and refocus my "to be".
I do all of my serious not thinking in the air ... yeah flying is so engaging that it can entirely overlay the day to day like a cherished heirloom tablecloth on the Thanksgiving table ... when I sit in that seat, it's before a a feast ... every single time.
I go to those "there's" to leave my "here" ... just for a tiny while ... and now not lately.  Now I am very much, unrelentingly here ... here trying to figure out where/what this is and how to make the value of it most. The most that's better then good enough for now.

And I'm thinking about those soldiers. marching like ants ... from village to village ... carrying their stuff, their thoughts and their can't think abouts ...  about who they were and who they became within the invisible construct of the lives they inhabited where choice converged with chance and circumstance.

Hmmm ... lot'sa interlocking randomness ... makes perfect sense to me.  It's all about why is most important.  What is most valued.  And the price demanded as character looks for those invisible lines that support ideal outcomes within evolving perimeters.  Where is the hill?  What is the hill?  My thoughts scatter like ants lost their way.


“But where is what I started for so long ago? 
And why is it yet unfound?” ~Whitman 



I promise myself I will walk.  Walking will be the most important "to do" for the next several ... maybe many days.  I will walk to tend myself.  I will walk to find my way.

Here will be my shore ... here will be my air.