Today, an estate sale sign sat in the yard of my childhood friend. Thirty years ago, we all loved to go to Katie’s house. Wonderful memories filled my heart.
I stopped and walked in the door to the sale. It was as if I had gone back in time. Picking a few things that I remembered, I paid for them and returned to my car.
My hands were shaking. How quickly life goes by. Those treasures now sit on my mantle. What will happen to them if, one day, an estate sale sign sits in front of my house?
She sat in the chair, staring at the wizened old lawyer.
“Zats vat it says” he uttered in his very European accent, for the third time. “I leave my great neice Victoria, who bears my name, my hotel in Winterthur, Svitzerlund.”
“I didn’t even know I had an Aunt Victoria!” Vicki exclaimed. “And where the heck is Winterthur, and what hotel?”
He handed her the photo, his hand shaking. It was the hotel she had seen on Modern Murder Mysteries on her favorite TV show last week.
He chased her down the beach laughing, catching her as she ran. He panted, then laughed, “I didn’t think I was going to catch you after all my planning!”
She looked down , suddenly realizing what was happening and gasped..
“You make me feel like the wild winds of the ocean.” he smiled as he put the ring on her hand. “I have no doubt that I want to spend every minute of my life with you., will you marry me?”
With the ring safely on her finger, they danced in the waves.
“Oh, my God!” “Oh my God!” She cried. The ring was gone.
Suddenly a wave washed up between her searching hands. Something sparkling amidst the shells. She grabbed the ring and smiled up at him, “I forgot to say, ‘I will, she laughed.”
She started up the endless stairs, her mind racing. “Who could have sent the message?” “Why did they want to come here, a place that had left her so with so many memories and caused her so much pain?”
Her legs beginning to shake, she could literally hear the frantic beating of her heart. She stopped, listening for any sound, any sign of someone ease’s presence.
Nothing. Nothing human, anyway, the howl of the wind outside the abandoned light house, an odd creaking above her as if someone was there. She clung to the rail, her consciousness fading. He smiled, carrying her away.
She was shaking like a leaf as she ran to the check-in counter, never having been on an airplane before.
“He’s my brother!” she was thinking. “And we have never met.” The giant aircraft taxied down the runway, pulling up to the hallway-like entrance that would lead her to the plane
She closed her eyes and thought of the picture he had sent, he looked so much like their mother, separated when she had died when they were toddlers.
“No longer an only child,” she smiled, and bravely took that last step from the stairway into the
waiting giant monster.
the softness of a lilac bloom as its fragrance wafts through the breeze
the deep delightful sight of springs first violet
sunset over the ocean-a color that purple cannot do justice to
from ground to sky, lilac to violet, purple refreshes our soul
I know these are Violas, Cellos, or Basses but once my daughter wrote a poem for school where you had to use adjectives as the first word-I can’t find it but will go with that theme.
Inside an aging locker
Beneath my azure sweater
Within an aging case
Cuddled against black velvet
My violin waits-
Anxious to sing it’s tune.
I kept hearing that sound-a mix of a far away scream and the howling of wind through some strange rock formation. “What was it?” I wondered as I sat huddled by the campfire with my brother and his friend.
We were both frightened and intrigued. Should we take off into the forest with only the moonlight and a small lantern to guide us, or ignore it, crawl into our warm sleeping bags in the tent and forget it?
And then we saw her, silhouetted against the rock at the top of the mountain. Her mystery and beauty held us all captive.
The light flickered dimly on the dark, round table. She noticed the curve of the three legs, all sprouting from the tables underside. “What hand had carved these legs, “ she thought. “What purposed did he have for the table when he carved it.”
She sat in the lone chair pushed up to the table and cupped her cold hands around the warmth of the flame. It flickered, as if in protest, ands she moved her hands away just a bit, as the flame regained its strength.
Outside, the wind whistled in the night. The quarter moon shone dimly in the window. There were no curtains to block the view of the moon, a flash of stars, the outline of the Big Dipper.
For a moment, she sat quietly, contemplating her next move. She had walked up the hill to the house her grandmother had been born in, searching for a place where her thoughts could flow freely and help her decided what to do.
She remembered the old radio she had brought here months before and walked to the shelf and turned it on. The radio hummed to life, a static in the background reminded her of the battery-powered radio she had listened to in bed at night as a child.
“The Geminid meteors will be visible tonight.” The radio announcer boldly spoke into the semi-darkness of the room. She left the radio on, but returned to the table, remembering a long ago night when her father had come to her room, awakening her at 2 am.
“Come here, honey, I want to show you something.” he had whispered as he stroked her hair. She had mumbled about being cold and sleepy as she slipped on her and house coat and followed him outside.” Shivering, as he held her, she waited and waiting until she say a meteor streak by and then another. That memory crept back into her mind as she lifted the candle and walked toward the door.
She sat the candle on the porch rail and walked into the field of dead December grass. Suddenly a brilliant streak of light flashed across the sky as a whip of wind made the candle’s flame shudder.
A smile crossed her face as another meteor appeared in the western sky. Her answer seemed so clear now, so obvious. She shivered again, wrapping her arms around her to hold her sweater shut, reached over, gently picked up the candle and walked back inside.
The radio announcer was still humming out the news, but she wasn’t listening. She turned it off, blew out the candle and walked quietly out the door. As she walked back to the home she had lived in her whole life, she could see herself in that little house, reborn, renewed, refreshed. The light from the candle, the light in the sky , it was a sign. Yes, this would be her home.
It was the first time our dad had let her drive at night. The excitement was electric! It was the 70’in the small town south. To dad, our choices were limited. Wrong! We had heard that a fair coming to town down by the river!
The forbidden group of carnies, the rigged games, cotton candy and most of all just being seen there, alone without parents. We would be the talk of the school!
Then it was 10:00 and the fair was closing. She turned the car’s ignition. Nothing. Again. Nothing. We looked around to see the grins of a group of boys we wouldn’t be caught dead with-or would we?
