It is the start of another day in the office. We face large windows that overlook a green sitting area and ends with the outside walls of a bar.  The blinking Lottery sign in one window and Yingling Beer Sign in the other stare at me all day.  Today I notice a young woman in a hot pink sweatshirt hugging a man in a brown sweatshirt.  Now the window turns into a TV monitor and the office workers start watching the couple with interest.  The pink sweatshirt starts wiping her eyes. We start making up stories as to what is going on.  Oh no he is walking away!  He is going back to the bar.  Look she is wiping her eyes again.  What is she going to do?  She is following him into the bar.

All of us girls started talking as to how we improvised a story while watching the large Window TV.  I start entering the timecards and think to myself, “Yes, some days I feel like a tarot reader when I enter in the timecards.”  I can read the lives of our employees.  I see the sick time when they don’t feel good or they just want a bunch of days off.  I can feel the hurt when someone they know dies.  I see the joy when they get three days off because someone has died.  It has been an interesting 25 years working in the office fishbowl.

Make it a GREAT DAY!

Laura I suck at poems

I miss the whispers in my head
They would tell me what a looser I am
I lived longer than the whispers in my head
You see,  I have become a king!

I walk to the waters edge.  The sand is hard on my feet.  I finally make it to the last dry sand before where it is wet from the ocean and sit down.  My bones creak as I sit and I wonder if I will be able to get up. 

The sand is warm; I dig with my feet into the sand until I feel the cool dampness on my feet.  Now that I am anchored in I enjoy the view.  I see the blue sky with a few white clouds and hear the seagulls making noise.

I get hypnotized by the waves and soon my mind is not at the beach.  I traveled back to my Grandmother’s living room.  It was our weekly Sunday visit.  My sister and I are sitting on a sofa and our Aunt gives us each a handful of M & M’s.  I just start eating and notice that my sister eats all but the red ones.  She then proceeds to lick the red M & M and color her lips in red!  Wow that is so amazing.  We outsmarted Mom.  We made our own lipstick and there was nothing she could do about it. Big sisters are amazing; you learn so many good and sneaky things to do.

The sound of people walking by brings me back to the Oceans edge.  The wind is blowing softly cooling me off.  I watch the waves curling in and disappearing over and over again.  I keep staring.  I can hear music and the next thing I know I am standing in Church wearing a lavender gown.  My sister turns to me in her beautiful wedding gown with lace and sequence. She has a smile on her face and is very happy.  I help adjust her gown as she turns to say her vows. I feel so loved.  I was sixteen and tickled that she chose me to be in her wedding.  I am sure my parents had something to do with that but it was great.  She always did have a lot of friends.  They were all at the reception dancing and drinking to Polkas at the VFW.  She is leaving home. Now that I am older, I realize that was the first time she left me.

I can smell salt in the air and when I open my eyes I am back on the sandy beach.  Sandpipers are running along the Ocean’s edge.  My memories seem so real at times.  I notice the tide is coming in and the sun is lower in the sky.  It is getting cooler so I wrap my arms around my legs to keep warm.  The waves are so relaxing, so hypnotic. Inside I am so sad. I close my eyes and my mind drifts off.

Suddenly, I am in high school and I ask for a hall pass.  I skip the bathroom and slip into the phone booth and call home.  Mom answers and I ask, “Did she have the baby yet?” “Why is it taking so long”. I am going to be an Aunt for the first time. I can’t believe my sister is going to be a mommy!

I can feel the coolness of the evening.  The sun is making my shadow long in the sand.  People are starting to pick up their beach bags and head back to where they came from.  My heart breaks as this is probably the last time I will ever be here, to stay at a condo on the beach, shop, travel and make crafts with my sister. We can’t share our lives anymore, because she is dying, and I am trying to be as brave as she is and not doing a good job at it.  I think of my sister suffering and the life running out of her.  I don’t want the day to end; I want it to go on forever!

Slowly, I realize that the wind has stopped; the waves have stopped making noise.  I look out at the water and see smooth waters.  It is beautiful, like glass. The wind has stopped, the waves have stopped.  The water is as smooth as glass.  I hear a voice in my head say, “Thou I walk in the shadows of death I shall fear no evil.”  I smile and say “no, my sister is different.  She didn't walk in the shadows of death.  She danced in the sun, said her goodbyes enjoyed every drop of life and showed me the correct way to live and the correct way to die.”

I love you sister, may you not rest in peace but be who you were here on earth in heaven.

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other. Then someone at my side says: “There, she is gone!” “Gone where?” Gone from my sight. That is all. Her diminished size is in me, not in her.  And just at the moment when someone at my side says: “There, she is gone!” there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: “Here she comes!” And that is dying. Henry Van Dyke

I ride my tricycle up and down the driveway.  I have done it so often that I have every crack and bump memorized. I ride from the garage, past the side door, and down the hill to the sidewalk and back.  All day I ride up and down back and forth in my own small safe world.

I am happy on my driveway dreaming of imaginary worlds with the every push of the peddle.  That is what consumed my days when my yard was my Universe.  Riding my tricycle and having the love of my family was all that mattered to me.

One day while riding on my tricycle the sun stopped burning down on me and a cloud covered the sunshine.  The wind came and found me and blew around me.  It blew my hair around my face and made noise in my ears.  I could hear it.  It whispered that there is a better place to ride my bike.  It told me that the sidewalk was much more fun.  I squinted at the sidewalk and it asked me to roll up and down it's back like I did on the driveway.

I jumped off the bike and ran to the brown wooden screen door yelling for my mom to come!  She came to the door carrying one of my baby brothers on her hip.  I was surprised that she said it was OK to leave the yard.  I felt so grown up. 

I took off on my tricycle never looking back and as happy as I could be.  I rolled down the cement hill of our driveway sticking out my feet as I took the curve onto the sidewalk that wanted me.  The wind was right; this was more fun than the driveway.

I found many interesting things along the way.  Somethings good and other things bad.  Somethings I found along the way I shoved in my pocket and saved and other things I just tossed away.

Many years have passed and I am done peddling and the fun is not exciting anymore.  I turn my tricycle back toward home but the wind is strong and it is hard to peddle.  I make it to the end of the old driveway so excited to share all my treasures I have found along the way.  The hill is steep so I get off the tricycle and walk the rest of the way.  I get to the door but it isn't a brown wooden screen door anymore.  I call for my mom and she doesn't come to the door.  The wind and the sidewalk tricked me.  My perfect world is gone, nothing is the same anymore.

It is what it is....I haven't a clue.  I made this for someone I wonder if it's you?