Someday when my niece, aka bucket, fussbucket is big enough to ask. We will tell her the story of when she, her mommy, and I went to Indiana University for a conference.
We had a blast!
While mommy was working, Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve never really been a girly girl. God knows I’m no tomboy (that would imply being sporty, which I am not) but ribbons, make-up, heels, shopping? eh.
Likewise for jewelry. It’s not that I don’t spoil myself or like the finer things but… spas and five-star hotels are more my weakness than flashy fashions or gems.
Usually.
When I was married, I came to love the sparkly diamond. I missed it when it was gone. But it, much like I probably was to my then inlaws, was a curiousity. I never fully understood or recognized it. It wasn’t fully me. People would tell me it was big or it was a particular cut and I would stare back, “mmm?” I had no words, no expertise in this arena.
So it was a surprise that this time around, I’ve been dreaming diamonds. Pink diamonds. Pink like the color, not of the sunset but of the glassy sea in the twilight of the shore. I didn’t even know such a thing existed (till, blush, I looked it up and found it). I’ve dreamed the platinum antique setting – delicate, wiry, dreamed the bliss of it on my finger and the serenity of real, profound joy.
There is some sadness in joy, my wise friend “A” told me on that other long-ago wedding day. And behind this glassy pink sea is sorrow, too. I am sorry that I didn’t know how to love like this before, sorry that I didn’t know that than, or know at least enough to say I wasn’t ready. I am sad that gold and big didn’t ever fit me right, though I wanted desparately to meld with that ring.
I mourn the lives we didn’t create together, the one that flickered in shared laughs, late-night talks and true, real friendship. And I hope, deep in the core of my being that you are finding your own glassy pink sea and that it is smooth and sparkly and sacred. I hope it suits you and brings you the surprising joy my dreams of pink diamond oceans have brought me. Mine is a joy of lessons learned, rock-solid friendships, love hard found and yet as comfortable as that warm sea, as ancient and as deep.
Thank you.
Please don’t tell me if Street Sense, the Washington D.C. based paper for and by the city’s homeless, has a downside, a seedy uncurrent, a mismanaged office. I don’t want to know. Because I love it.
I love the home-grown nature of it, the pull-yourself up by your bootstraps nature of it, and, frankly, the fine writing! Check out this April’s fools’ day post, slamming on -gasp – our nation’s finest baseball team, management, and sense of “giving back.” :
Opening Day has taken on new meaning in the nation’s capital this year as the Washington Nationals are opening the doors of
their new southeast D.C. stadium to the
city’s homeless population for overnight
stays throughout the season.
Under the “Open Door Policy” unveiled
on April Fool’s Day by Team President Stan
Kasten, the homeless are invited to sleep in
stadium seats or on the concourse at Nationals
Park but must stay off of the field,
a compromise brokered by Head Groundskeeper
Doug Lopas, who stressed the need
to protect the stadium’s new turf.
“This generous plan will keep displaced
residents from having to leave the city in
a futile search for low-income housing options,”
said Barbara Silva, the Nationals director of community relations. “the impression that economic progress depressed regions has a detrimental effect on
the poor.”
Wow. The article goes on to quote fans, players, and other afficiniados of the new “sleepover day.”
