Mother's Day

The air - salt, water, heat - rubs up around me in the sticky green nightfall. Nothing but the salt in the air (why can you smell the salt of the sea, but not the salt of the table?) reveals the presence of the sea beyond the road just there, beyond the slow stoplight and the salt-licked condos. It is the kind of evening when we should be treated to ice cream, if we were on vacation. But we're not, and the Starbucks is closed too early, and the man wandering around alone makes me wish I parked closer to the grocery store. I am almost in a dream, asleep as I breathe, inside this cool and ambient atmosphere of the floral section. Yellow roses. Those are my mother's favorites. A bunch of baby's breath to go along. Why must it be called baby's breath? Babies do not breathe the scent of flowers, at least in my limited experience. "Happy Mother's Day," the cashier says half-asleep by rote, and I wonder if I should take offense at this - I am not a mother.

The darkness is like a sleeping dragon oblivious beneath the stars, and the sprinklings of lights between me and my home talk years in  the silence. Driving at night the long sea-winded road makes me beyond awake - like dreaming, like sleeping, with my eyes open.. "... all your actions write the melodies to the songs that we sing..." Anberlin - yes, I am an Anberlin addict - songs drift like the road, like my thoughts. Hello, Past. Hello, Memory. It's been a while, or not so long, since we reminisced on the dark road home.

Happy Mother's Day, to all the mothers out there, especially my own. My mother is the most selfless person I know, and I wouldn't be who I am if it wasn't for her.