two

On the property...

I started digging the foundation today. I dug and filled the wheelbarrow, then Mon Ami hauled the dirt to the terraced area. Quiet save the sound of shwooshing shovels and pinging pinch bars against boulder finds. We moved almost a third of the area. The rocks are stacked against the earth for erosion control. 

In my mind...(a letter to one of my sisters)

My heart broke when I was 14. You backed down the driveway in the green Pinto, packed with paraphernalia and nostalgia to cushion your travel eastward. Mannassass. I wanted to go with you. I was dying inside - my best friend leaving me. I can still see that green Pinto, the back of your head as you look out the rear window for imagined obstacles, the tires rolling, turning down the road, taking a left, then around the corner, then gone. I thought I would never see you again. 

Your wedding came and went, and although I was invited, I was to stand on the periphery, watching and hoping for some acknowledgement, some thing that told me you remembered me. I remember only the hat/veil. I was not allowed to celebrate or get to hang out with you and your entourage while you dressed and did makeup, talk with you about your future wishes or present fears, or be in your presence at all that day. I remember being stressed out and unwelcome, disdained and unacceptable. You were my best friend, but that relationship was a memory irretrievably, long gone. 

But I would not be thwarted. I survived on your beautiful soul, your kind and gentle demeanor, your stoic behavior, your very example of living a life best suited for you, on the very knowing that I would wrap my arms around your form and drink of all that that made you. I reveled in my mind of my best friend, my sister Kellie. 

Decades passed, and I flew to your home in Atlanta. We battled in the kitchen with gravy and potatoes. I folded clothes with your offspring. I felt the pain of your husband's type 2 diabetes diagnosis. I cried a river backing out of your driveway and all the way to the airport, through security, and home. I cry now, barely able to see the screen, to type the words - I miss you. 

Should this separation end with a visit only the universe knows. For human relationship is far toodynamic and varied to be planned. Until then...onward.