Here I am again. I feel horrible dropping in and out, but I have been bit by a very particular writing bug and am trying to deal with it by coming back here. To write. I am having an onslaught of big dreams right now. I want to accomplish the things I set out to accomplish. I also want to stop being afraid of expectations. I want to stop being vague, but it is a language I have developed to avoid saying the things that are on my mind these days. The things not yet solidified. So instead I will write on these prompts. I have until next December to complete all 642 Things. Why I had never noticed that the number of things to write about included 42, the number that is most calming to my math-afraid but curious brain. I am currently exhausted and going to attempt to write on five prompts. Before that a happy story. I like to tell the happy ones too.

 

I went to Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium today. It has been a week of aquarium and museum visits. The days go by faster when they are filled with lovely things. I am an aquarium lover. I could stand in a blue room and watch sharks go by all day before someone would have to remind me that the aquarium is closing. They are like my art galleries. I wish I could visit them late at night, void of people, and just sit and comtemplate, or better yet, dissolve. There is a paragraph from a Willa Cather book that talks about dissolving being letting go of everything but the moment. That happens to me in aquariums. Today though, I was grateful for the people. For two people. Tracy and Jim. A couple who had just re-bought their membership without being told of the $90 price increase. They were a little miffed, and instead of getting angry, they walked up to us and offered to get us in. We thought they just wanted us to pay them so they could make up the difference. Nope. They just wanted to get us in for free and make their membership worthwhile. They weren’t even going to give us their names. They said go, and enjoy the zoo. So we did. We really did. Our lives seemed charmed in that moment, and the whole visit was magical. I got to ride a camel with my two children, who have grown into small people who talk and want things for themselves…like ice cream and camel rides, but also love, and hugs. I rode a camel with them. Was told that they were called the ships of the desert because of the rocking motion caused by the fact that they walk differently than most animals, moving their left legs and then their right. If you were to get on your hands and knees right now (like I just did) and attempted to walk on all fours, you would find yourself, likely, moving your right hand and left foot forward and then your left hand and right foot. Try to do it the way camels do. It feels alien. Riding a camel was like being a part of a sci fi film. That is to say: amazing. On that note about my day I shall get to the prompt. (Tracy and Jim found us later gave us their number and offered to get us in for free any time…life can be so good)

You are an astronaut. Describe your perfect day.

I am just staring out the window of the observation deck. It is my day off from all the button pushing and the measuring and the research projects. I am just looking at the stars, and the earth, and being taken by the fact that I am here at all. I just float and my ears are empty of complaints about space food and peeing in no gravity. Life is incredible because this is possible. Everything I worked for is happening. My life is not unremarkable. I am in space. I am in space.