101922b

So I've got this thing, this wound, and I'm supposed to spend a lot more time lying on my back, rather than sitting up. So I'm staring at the ceiling, playing loud rock music on my phone, and reading posts on Twitter, but this will only take me so far. Which is why I've been traveling down memory lane, remembering who I used to be, as if anybody besides me is likely to care. Sometimes I get together with my sisters and we talk about the old days, but we don't all remember the same old days. "Remember when we trampled the tall grass that Dad allowed to grow up to reseed the yard?" "Um, we did?" We all remember, I think, saving paper grocery bags full of hickory nuts to throw out on the snow for the squirrels in the winter time. Only I remember that the red-dirt bank at the foot of the White's yard yielded tiny quartz crystals, stained red by iron oxide, which lay winking in the sun after heavy rains, because only I collected them. I hope everyone remembers playing Pooh sticks, growing up in central Virginia, a land crossed by many small rivers. That was not possible where my kids spent their childhoods, but we sometimes camped in places where we taught them the game.

Ah, now I can get up! Until next time--it's back to the future.