I’m not saying I want my kid to go to the school in Lean on Me–>  no “welcome to the jungle” or chained doors, but I want Morgan Freeman for Principal.

As we take #1 to enter the public school system for day 1–>    I think/feel/see  +

I’m hoping in the years to come a Freeman or two will be up in her spirit-face to challenge her.  I’m hoping for some spirit lights to be left on. I’m OK with the tough teacher or personality to navigate and OK with bump(s), unforeseen tests and mediocre lunches.  I’d like the majority of her teachers to give a damn. I want her to be safe.  I want room within the walls to become who she is and no space to be who she isn’t.  Am I silly or wrong to hope for some pocket(s) of magic?

I want to help.  I want the “we got fun and games” portion of the song.  I want a volcano experiment gone bad and a story she hasn’t yet told.

In putt-putt & life it’s hard not to want to know what happens next.

Vancouver Island–>  here we come.

We know a little more or less this time ’round.

In the wee hours last weekend I found myself up at 1:30 (or so) and having trouble getting back to baseline and/or sleep I looked to my phone.  My phone told me that the much delayed golf Open Championship at St. Andrews was live, and my man Spieth was even out there.  I flipped on the telly to tune in for a few.  The wind was gusting hard in Scotland and me. The first thing I saw was the tournament leader go down to mark his ball and before he could it starting blowing away.  His playing partner Spieth was running to get out of the way of the rolling ball, I might have even seen a jump in there.  Athletic maneuvers usually reserved for other sports. Minutes later they again postponed play due to conditions.  It’s the middle of the night in the middle of my head in the middle of a tournament half a world away.  It’s golfers in stocking caps and ponchos. And it makes total semi-sense because it’s semi-surreal and I’m only semi-awake.

Sometimes I do,

but never forget.

Sometimes you have to pack up to get to a place to unpack your brain.

Even greatness needs a shoulder.

Photo by Kyle Terada

At 5:15 Sunday morning if you’re in the park with kids you aren’t checking out the elements, you’re part of them. Among the limping and squinty-eyed, beneath the birds who are still waiting to sing. There are those here who slept in their cars for the night, some who haven’t slept at all, and one motivated soul who went to bed early so he wouldn’t miss his A.M. jog. That guy is a jerk and the birds are cruel.

We are part of this. At Haggens Grocery (open 24 hours) humanity at 5:15 consists of the half-alive, half-dead, and half-stocking shelves. The airport and sketchy gas station are the only other things open. Everyone here didn’t start at the same time but we’re now all part of this collective grave-yard shift, searching for brown rice on aisle 5 and our brain in the deli. The meat and cheeses are not out yet and the newspaper is undelivered, but the bagels just arrived to warm the slumbering hearts of the freaks and phantoms.

And it’s early when you go back to the park to see the sun still only hitting the tops of the fir trees. Below, in the big shadow, lurks us.

Ski to Sea weekend in Bellingham, someone might get a free shirt. Just outside the city line we had visitors, the special kind.
No snow = no ski. Oh well, a modified course couldn’t stop the race.
We = homemade bingo board play, barn, free samples, kid parking hustlers, ice cream, athletes completed, I won.