twenty-five hundred miles west

here i sit hurtling through the air at thirty thousand feet above the sea, listening to sarah brightman’s stratospheric voice and trying to count the diminutive diamond feathers of frost clinging to the window. the sun tickles my nose so i sneeze again and again and yet can’t stop studying the rolling banks of cloud where surely athena strode queenlike a few hours ago, her sandaled feet sculpting the snowscape into blue velvet valleys and diamantine summits. another plane’s exhaust scratches a fine white line through the azure sky. safe in her soft snowflake sweater, my seatmate sleeps with one hand clasped around her plump wrist, the tip of her callused thumb gently pressing into the gentle, spotted skin of her forearm. she sleeps, her book half falling out of her hand .. and i wonder what she dreams.

a long way down

as i piroutte through ccoj with krista, newly hardened casings shrivel off and protest not. the questions ((( am i thin enough pretty enough smart enough funny enough desirable enough popular enough good enough better-than-everyone-else enough ))) barge in through the back door of my subconscious only to freeze, shocked, at the threshold, and retreat grumbling to the depths. one has no time for cross-examination in the middle of a marshmallow fight with preschoolers, nor even in the middle of scuttling about on all fours like a crab on the floor, nor yet in the middle of playing ‘what wondrous love is this’ on the piano while one’s daddy stands behind singing along. those questions demand full attention, and full attention they did not get. should not get. will not get.

and all the way home

young enough to genuinely exult over new shoelace charms with morgan. old enough (i think) to not be too surprised that a certain friend is engaged. (but that’s marriage, and it’s so exciting, but it lasts forever, and are you really, and .. oh .. can we talk about shoelace charms again?) silly enough to imitate the hooves of a pawing steed with my elbows. (kelli did it first.) real enough to sit and think and be.

and that, my dear amaryllis, is enough.


p.s. biology — i am ashamed of you. what is going on in your silly little head? you think it’s funny to go and make yourself a B+? you think i enjoy that? you think so? huh? huh? and chemistry? what the heck. thanks for giving me a better grade on my final than i got on any of the previous exams. i love you. you are my precious jewel but i really wish i didn’t have to take you next semester. that’s alright. i forgive you, simply for not being a B+. that’s right, biology .. i’m glaring at you.