Hitting the Mute Button

Yesterday AM I was looking for a pair of flip-flops to wear to my brother-in-law's house for a cookout. Every open-toed shoe I own has been in hibernation since last September, therefore I had a hard time finding the *ones* I wanted. I'm like that. I lose things often and usually my fruitless searches end just that-- fruitless.

Yesterday AM was different.

I found a bag full of old notebooks and scraps of paper on which I had written snippets of thought and pieces of prose. Just things. Stuff. Words that have come to mind every now and then as I have lived my life.

Meaningless to most, really.

I uncovered a plain, small, black, spiral, three-subject notebook.

As I sat in the closet and skimmed through it for a few moments, I was surprised to meet my past skyewriter, so hopeful, so optimistic, so positive, so strong.

Not that I don't feel that way now. The volume is just turned down a bit. And sometimes, if I am to be completely honest, I hit the mute button on those thoughts.

Optimism hurts sometimes.

I found a short paragraph without a date attached to it so I have no idea when I wrote this. But I guess I find myself thinking about the last 37 years of my life a lot these days. It's always part of my process as I pass through a liminal phase-- which really every day, every moment is a liminal phase, but I don't want to go there today. (See why I hit the mute button?)

So here it is. It *means* to me. Just some scraps of thought scribbled quickly someday, somewhere, someplace years ago.

Those special summer dusks
Riding bikes after dinner and
Catching lightning bugs
When something told me to
Hold onto that moment,
For soon it would be gone.

An unconscious kind of knowing
A child's understanding
That summertime would end.
That those days of climbing trees and
Building forts would go
And stay forever only in my memories.
The time when innocence
Was all I knew.

Happy Sunday all.

Thanks, Cosa for the COSIE. I promise to post on it ASAP :).