Many of my teen memories are solitude. I’m not sure why, but often when I catch a fleeting smell in the air, a season changing, a familiar song, it takes me back to warm evenings, looking up at the stars on my driveway. Perhaps it’s because I spent a lot of my time doing just this. I loved a nice breeze, masses of stars swimming above me, and writing. When I should have been a giggling school girl, I was drinking hot tea and writing poetry. I had one of those moments tonight. Husband on a surprise business outing at the last minute, kids screaming and fighting. Dishes in the sink. Coffee not made for the morning. I noticed a football on the front lawn. I stepped outside, barefoot, in the cold grass to retrieve it. Soft breeze. Silence except for the humming street light. The tiniest faint of moon through the cloud cover. Closing my eyes I smell pine and dirt. I remember her. The girl that was happy to be outside at night, in her own solitude. Glancing down, I notice a chalk drawing on the pavement. It reminds me of the boy, all those years ago, I crushed over. Then I thought how happy that girl would have been for that boy to have drawn with chalk on her driveway. I imagined how she would have sat next to that drawing, under the night sky, drinking her tea. I trace that drawing with my toe, smile, and step inside.
