40 at 40

Friends, or friend as it may be....I'm turning 40 in a year.  I'm an August birthday and count the whole month as my personal birthday.  This day then is the beginning of my new year.  I'd like to have 40 things I'd like to do or experience by the time I turn 40.  This is the beginning of the list.

1. Fly---I'd like to paraglide.
2. Paddle board...I want to learn how.
3. Walk in a 5k.
4. Learn to ride the waves.
5. Travel to a distant land.
6. Have a really good meal out.
7. Open the palate of my mind.
8. Visit Palm Springs
9. Salsa dance
10. Write more.
11. Eat less meat.
12. Actually use the reusable bags for groceries.
13. Learn to recycle.
14. Have my credit card be 0 balance
15. Do more massage and acupuncture
16. Sail
17. Take a class
18. Visit the Art Museum
19. Ride my bike
20. Enjoy more happy hours with friends.
21. 
    

Friends

I've just started a new job, and have come home from the first couple of days with plenty of time to spare. I've just made the connection that I have time to write. I'm excited.

Stage

The lights were so bright on stage that I grasped the mic and reached out to feel tangible and in my body. I sang my song yet again, but this time did not click into auto pilot but felt my body and soul swell and release with the music. My show was so well practiced that rarely did art and soul combine. I often contemplated daily necessities such as my shopping list or my daily walk and snapped back to reality when the music stopped and the applause began. Bravo! Bravos, they would shout as I had chose braised chicken over seared tuna in my musings.

So tonight was a rare treat. The familiar strains of music began with a flash of the conductors baton and I stepped onto the blinding stage and high healed it to the mic. Grasping reaching and releasing my soul to the top of the curtain. There it floated and swooped with visions of swirls and colors encircling me as I sang. The Italian song built to a mighty crescendo and then became tender and gentle before the finish. My upper lip was damp after that first song and I knew that tonight would be one of those performances that fueled me. One of those performances where I knew I was truly an artist and not a girl on stage for hire.

Aunt Anna

We sat out on the breeze way, summer wind teasing our hair. Little girls posing as fancy ladies. You served us on your fine china and had us dab the corners of our mouths with linen napkins. You stifled my giggles and little girl song with a strong look, but your hand rested lovingly on my sun warmed hair.

Thank you for letting us jump rope for hours on end. Thank you for teaching us to be ladies.

Birth

I went almost apoplectic that day.

It began with gifted tickets to a white sox game. My friends and their almost grown son and myself. Large major league beers were consumed by those of age and sun burns were had by all. We went to Amy's mother's house after the game for a much needed pit stop. While the other adults were chatting at the table, Johno and I ran to the back yard which housed a very old trampoline. It's frame was rusted and the canvas had a well worn hole in it. Johno, a rather large 13 year old, and I took turns bouncing as high as the sky. It was glorious.

My competitive streak got the best of me when Johno pulled off a forward flip. I know that if I bounced high enough I could do something more special and even more spectacular. Arms pumping and legs springing I drunkenly contemplated feeling as air born as a bird when the trampoline did not catch and release me, but let me plummet to the rich black hubris underneath. I somehow in my jumping glee had not avoided the well worn hole and had widened it to the size of my ass. I went right through-it was a birth like experience, and then crawled through the black dirt to roll on the ground with howls of laughter.

The Park

He played with squeaks and squeals like he was a novice player but he had been doing this for years. He serenaded at the formal gardens during the golden sunlight part of the day as often as he could. It cooled his thoughts and softened his heart.

The other officers had no idea of this alter ego. They knew him as the cold eyed hard ass. The straight player in the good cop bad cop routine. This musical facet of him hit at a truth unknown to his buddies. Only his lovers know of this tenderness, but that was because he played them much like he played his soprano sax. The rise and fall of his sex much like the rise and fall of his melody; tongue, teeth, caress, and blow. All elements in the same vein stemming from the same desire. Yet another facet his fellow officers knew nothing about.

Volcano

The hell fire of the volcano swirled and popped sending plumbs of molten lava into the air, spitting like a boiling pot of soup. It was so unearthly that in the moment it elicited little emotional response. Only when the truck turned and the view was lost did she feel the breath extinguish and the knees jelly. It was the remarkableness of the moment and the loss caused by the shock that made her ache to return. She wanted the emotional response; she needed it in a way she couldn't explain. She cursed her own humanness and her ability to diminish the impact. She wanted to live it again, smell the seer of the fire and feel immersed in the heat. She wanted to see again the explosion of nature at it's finest and most brutal. She could close her eyes and see the jagged imprint of the rocks and the lava glowing with the brilliance that reminded her of stolen glances at the sun. The sulfur and burn lingered. She could smell it faintly on her clothes like sleep.