Spring walk around the neighborhood

A little brunette girl stops at the corner across the street to stare at me and says "hello" at the moment she realizes I know she is staring. I meet up with an acquaintance who I know from all sorts of different things. She tells me about her graduate degree studies. She finally reveals her age, something I've kind of wondered about for a few years now. A young teacher and a young girl smile as they walk down the center of the street, not quite together, but not apart either. They both say hello. The man in the teal Ford pick up smiles and waves. He wears sunglasses and I have no idea who he is, but I wave back. Dora the explorer action figure lies fading on the sidewalk as she has for the last several weeks when I've walked by this corner. At the library a man sits on the bench with the Mark Twain statue, his young toddling daughter banging the literary genius in the head with a toy. The man sitting on his porch nods at me as I walk by. The jogger breathes out "hi" as he sweats past me and I wonder who he might be.

Why not love the Wind?

It is a memory.
It lifts what we’ve left behind.
It shows us what we’ve discarded.
It belittles our attempts at physical perfection.
It reminds us that we are naked underneath our clothes.
It reminds us of why we have eyelashes.
It makes us gritty.
It forces the earth into our hair and our teeth.
It gives the earth back to us in whatever state we’ve left it.
It makes me love scarves.
It reminds us that everything is in motion.
It reminds us not to stand still.
It makes us thankful for our own girth.
It’s a little like an atmospheric embrace.
It’s a little like an airy kiss.
It gives us reasons to laugh at others.
It gives us reasons to laugh at ourselves.
It reminds truckers that they don’t own the road.
It reminds cars that they don’t own the earth.
It reminds us to spit. It moves the world one granule at time.
It unearths secrets.
It carries scents.
It carries seeds.
It makes its own song.
It taught us to whistle.

Guest Blogger

Kitten Dreams

I told the small-footed dreamer,
Your hopes are kittens.
Do not pussyfoot around.
They grow into strays
clawing at each other,
begging the small-footed
maven for sour milk.

--Eleanor Abernathy

Elanor Abernathy holds an M.D. from Harvard Medical School and a J.D. from Yale Law School. Ms. Abernathy juggled the trials and travails of two careers for years until alcohol and pain medication forced her to reexamine her priorities. After losing both her licenses, she turned to therapy and discovered her niche as a cat lover. When she is not writing, she collects stray cats. She is founder and editor of the periodical Alley Cat Voyeur which intimately and respectfully examines the lives of stray cats.