That's my motto as I slog through my latest sinus infection. I am weary of the endless passage of phlegm through my nasal canals and maybe if I hadn't smoked for twenty years or developed an addiction to those red hot candy antihistamine pills or worked in an office with leaky smelly moldy plumbing I might be healthier. Oh balls, quit complaining and who's up for a climb on a high Mississippi bluff breathing in that sweet moist air and checking on the flight of a lone eagle soaring above me.
I trudge up a path that once was a trolley car route and I hear girls laughing. My grandmother and her best bud and cousin Violet nudging each other, full of girl secrets, wavy unruly hair held back by huge organza bows, riding the car up the hill for summertime play. I have the picture of the two of them and it is 1916. What would Nana think of me, I am older than her husband when he died. I am filled with empty spaces today. Walks always include memories of my mother pushing at me and consuming me. She appears on my horizon when it is quiet and I am alone.
On the top of the bluff there is no noise, animal, human or machine. I turn off my Ipod and listen to this rare sound of nothing. And then I hear a faraway train whistle and I have heard them since my childhood lying in bed on a summer night and the chugging of the trains was the sound of the world turning, or so thought my five-year-old mind.
On the top of the bluff there is no noise, animal, human or machine. I turn off my Ipod and listen to this rare sound of nothing. And then I hear a faraway train whistle and I have heard them since my childhood lying in bed on a summer night and the chugging of the trains was the sound of the world turning, or so thought my five-year-old mind.
2 comments:
I look at the faces, and can't tell which one is Nana. I try to bring up an image of Nana and then apply it to one of the two little girls and can't.
That's because neither one is Nana. The actual picture, bows and all, could not be reproduced effectively so I went to good ole google advanced search images and just typed in old fashioned girls. It'll have to do.
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