Shoelaces for Josie » history

I Remember

Erica — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 00:45:39 +0000

I remember…

…racing Ranger across the fields in the shadows of dawn.
…riding up and down our gravel driveway on The Clunker.
…kicking a ball over the barn. (we didn’t get out much?)
…collasping in front of the fan after another humid day.
…watching the fireworks dot the horizon on the fourth.
…raking hay. baling hay. throwing hay. stacking hay.
…mowing with the brake-less, reverse-less Snapper.
…picking peas. and green beans. and strawberries.
…cutting thistles over miles and miles of pasture.
…blistering hot days, muggy opressing nights.
…the whistle of mom’s pressure canner.
…the crunchy sun-burnt grass.
…hamburgers on the grill.
…poison ivy. twice.
…catching fireflies.
…hayfield picnics.

…the summers of my youth.

White Christmas

Erica — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 18:34:57 +0000

For it to feel like Christmas, and I mean really feel like Christmas, there has to be snow. It’s just how it has to be. It’s not an option. I grew up in Iowa for crying out loud. You know how many snow days we’d get in a year? A lot. It was rare for there to be a Christmas without snow. I got mad when there was a Christmas without snow, because it didn’t feel like Christmas. And dang it, when it’s Christmas, it needs to feel like Christmas.

And then I went to San Francisco a couple years ago for the holiday season. It was a balmy 40 degrees with rain. Everything was drab and dreary, and it did not feel like Christmas. All the Californians were buying their Christmas trees and getting gifts and putting up Christmas lights, and really…what’s the point? It’s California. There’s no snow. There’s not even the chance for snow. That’s how the rest of the world lives? With a Christmas that isn’t white? I don’t want it.

I suppose that’s the little girl inside of me. Sometimes I get irrational about things like the weather. About little details that I have no control over. About the things that really don’t matter that much but are integral to the atmosphere of an occassion. Maybe someday I’ll grow out of that. Probably not. But maybe.

Maybe I Could Have Been President

Erica — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 21:38:04 +0000

The maybes will kill you. Probably not literally, although I suppose the chance is always there. A big block of wood carved into the word “maybe” could fall out of the sky, land smack dab on your head and no more you. It could…but not likely. Figuratively though? Figuratively, the maybes will kill you if you let them.

The maybes are the same as the what ifs or the could haves or the…song that just doesn’t end. You start maybein’ and what iffin’ and could havin’ and then what? It doesn’t get you anywhere; the things that actually happen and the situations that actually occur are what get you where you’re at.

Like someone really smart said, “There will always be maybes. Maybe I could have been the freaking President, but no one cares because that’s not how it worked out.”

Exactly, my friends. That’s exactly what I’m saying. Maybe I could have been the dadgum, freaking President but no one cares because it’s not how my life has gone down in the history books.