I ran out of the house and down the back steps this morning past an assortment of little pumpkins leftover from Halloween in a mad dash for an appointment with my hair guy (whom I've mentioned before). Seems I'm always running late. Not a lot; just a little. Just enough that I'm rushing ...
And later — on my way to the grocery store for one of those dubious-looking green smoothies (also mentioned at some point) via brick sidewalks (mentioned) along historic streetscapes (mentioned) beneath inexplicable wonders of architecture — I passed a guy sipping coffee (oft-mentioned) while riding a Segway (yep, mentioned).
Which made me think ...
Mr. Betty and I went to a wedding a few weeks back; that's always enough to make you/me/anyone think about all the so-called water under the bridge. And as we were waiting to move from one stage to the next — from the cocktail hour to the dinner table out at Ocean Cliff, overlooking the bay, toward the bridge, just past sunset — we picked up a party favor with our names on it that told us where to sit. I liked it: the party favor (not to mention the clear sense of direction). I even saved it — a little wooden schooner — and had every intention of hanging it on the Christmas tree a few weeks hence. But its fragile masts snapped in two in my too-small handbag before we made it home, and it'd be difficult to glue it together again ...
Both kids — Darling Daughter and Super Son — were home for Thanksgiving. It was a swell few days, though it really got me thinking about time (again), and how it's not so much a continuum as a series of stages. In hindsight, anyway. Each child is fixed in my mind in steps: the baby, the toddler, the school kid, the junior high kid, and so on, but I have no sense of their moving from one step to the next. They just leaped (leapt?), or that's how it seems now. Tick, tick, tick — it's really not a smooth motion. Predictable, maybe, as it goes in one direction only, but full of stops. Starts ...
Steps.
As I drew to the end of First Beach where I'd been walking on Saturday — unlike the walk I took Sunday from end-to-end-and-back-again at Second Beach with Darling Daughter before she headed back to school — I ran into that river/rivulet/stream/whatever down by the ABC (and I don't mean the alphabet) where there's ongoing construction having to do with unpleasant matters exacerbated by storm run-off. I didn't cross. In summer, I would have leapt (maybe) or waded (maybe), but not now. Not into cold water. Not with sneakered feet. Not that particular stream. I just stood for a minute or two looking at a flock of gulls on the other side doing nothing-much-except-whatever-gulls-do and who stood looking back at me but paying no heed as if they knew I wouldn't leap so they needn't bother flying away ...
Which reminded me of time again. And how it flies, ticks, slides — sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly — just like all that (can't believe I'm mentioning it again) water under the bridge. Although here, in this spot, with no bridge in sight, the flow was going in both directions, almost cycling around (how many times have I cycled around?), in and out, out and in, which strikes me as a vastly preferable way of looking at things ...
So when I got home after seeing my hair guy — back to this morning, i.e., back to where I started — the tiniest of the past-prime pumpkin collection that's been sitting above our back door for a month or two without incident appeared to have fallen from its perch and was lying askew, but intact, on the step.
In case you're wondering what in the world (!!) I'm talking about, click here and notice the date. In typical fashion, I remembered something (an anniversary of sorts) one day late ...
