snapshots of me

I stood at the counter watching the black and white pages pop from the machine.  The weight of the notebook a phantom in my hand. I had found it while waiting to be helped by the man at the print shop.

It was tucked away on a shelf.  The cover, a waxy wash of blue, pages dots, not lines, an open spine, and only $10.  But still, with so many expenses this month I told myself I didn't need it.  I didn't need another notebook.

Over the weekend I thought about it.  The smell.  The blueness.  The clean slate.  Sunday at 5:55 I checked the prints shops hours- Sunday 12-6.

On Monday I struggled with the rumpled green bills inside my wallet.  I mentally tagged each one of them towards the desserts needs for Beach's birthday, for a proper gift for Baby J, towards the trip to the bounce house for her, and fresh vegetables we would be needing midweek.

No money for a notebook.

But on Tuesday morning I made an excuse to go to the post office and drove the print shop.  I found a blue notebook.  Rubbed the cover.  I opened it.  Shut it.  Turned it over and rubbed the back.  I put it back once but the second time I picked it up I carried to the counter.

"This one is my favorite," the man said.  Then he showed me its blueness, it's open spine, its grid, not lined pages. He was the same man who had helped me the week before.

When I got home I was too nervous to write in it.  I got out a sheet of notebook paper and wrote: Pieces of Me. Below that, I spaced out the words: Me, Family, School, House, Yard, Travel, and Work across the paper. Then I got to work adding in the details under each part.

When I was satisfied I took up the blue notebook.  Opened the first page and printed in 4 months of calendars and listed important events off to the side.  I skipped the second page but on the third, I carefully copied in the Pieces of Me. Adding artful accents and using 3 different colors of ink.

It wasn't until the late afternoon when I was standing on the summit that I realized it had been one week.  That last Tuesday I was not on top of a mountain.  I did not have a new blue notebook and a clean slate.  I was way out in the valley at the dentist's office closing old doors.

One week.

What divinity is this?

A naked dragon with granite bones

It sleeps like a cat coiled and still

but rises like a serpent

rolling to the sea

breaking the surface of the sky

with scales of red and yellow

and eyes of winter white

In that space, I have already hiked 2 hikes that mean more than miles to me. The Living Room is inside my soul.  It is my heart and my fears.  It holds pieces of my sister, of love, of loss, fire, and snow.

Elbow Fork is of another lifetime- and another love.  It is the fight I have been fighting for the past 3 or 4 years.  The fight to make it to higher ground.  It holds the sound of silence, ghosts of steamy breath, BC's hand outstretched, flannel, rain, and lightning.

As I hike I take snapshots of myself smiling at nothing and marvel at how much I am starting to look like ME.

The mountain breaks the October sky,

tearing at its white dress

ripping holes in its autumn peace

I could stay here in its whisper

rest in the wind

let the dog go feral like the trees

When I return from the mountain I gather all the notebooks from this past year and burn them in the yard in a nest of fallen leaves and narrow branches.  The flames blacken out the calendars with important events.  The dentist appoints littered like buckshot among them disappear.  The fire licks the pages; meal plans, medication schedules, soft food lists, chores, projects completed, words already written, gifts already bought and given. The notebooks burn.

I go inside and take up the blue book.  On the fourth page, I write.