In a nod to an early autumn, I have decided to open the confessional door early. And while I'm not officially back until the 3rd, First Draft has been taken off the shelf and dusted off.
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Dear Reader, it's been an entire summer since I last confessed. I have been burned (sun) & bruised since I last confessed, I have climbed a roof without permission, I have traveled to Hell and back.
Reader, I made it through. Let's begin--
1) I have a bad habit of nicknaming people, then not knowing their real names when I see them in person. Here are some people in my community who I “know” but don’t know: Pizza Lady, The Treehaters (my neighbors), Smokey’s dad, Monster House Woman, Biker Dad, Remote Man (this is the guy at my gym who always has to be in control of the remote to the TVs), Mean Post Office Lady (don’t mail your submissions with her), Happy Gym Guy, Pretty Lady.
2) My husband and I also have a habit of seeing strangers and thinking they look like celebrities (though this tends to happen more to men than women). Usually we’ll be driving to the ferry and one of us will say, “Look, there’s Sting.” Or “Hey, there’s Bono.” They are not all Euro rockers (though we do see a lot of them in our small town). We’ve also pointed out Fred Flintstone, Elton, John, Tom Selleck, and Christopher Walken.
3) I have not submitted a poem in 22 days. I know this because I keep a “Days Since” gadget on my iGoogle page. If you haven’t tried this gadget, it’s the best thing as it keeps track of how long its’ been since you’ve done something.
Other things on my “Days Since” list are: watered the jasmine, meditated, walked Baby Boy (aka my dog Buddy Holly), watered the herbs, wrote a poem.
4) The rooftop. The plane. The ladder. The angry neighbor. The many things that could have happened. The few that actually did.
5) During our trip to the dude ranch, I actually thought "Someone is going to die on this vacation." I confess, when we took the horses down the steep switchbacks to Hell's Canyon and we walked along the edge of the ravine with the Boulder River overflowing with whitecaps below I thought, “What kind of a mother would take her 7 year old daughter on a dangerous vacation like this?”
In the end, it turned out to be our best vacation ever. And for me, it was a good lesson in faith and trust and realizing that sometimes I have to travel to hell on horseback so I can return to realize how much I have.
