A back up plan.

We are always plotting our runaway. When we have bad days and nothing goes like it should, we decide where we will go and how we will survive and we discuss all the good things that will happen to us when we get there.

Laguna Beach, the beautiful OC, on a Tuesday. I will nanny for the rich, wiping the noses of tiny pre-divas in Gucci onesies, in return for at least two bedrooms overlooking the sand and the waves and all the tanned people. She will nurse the new lips and boobs back to health and we will live off of the wages she makes keeping famous nose jobs secret and discreet. We will breathe in salty air and never get sick of it. We will shop while wearing dark sunglasses and floppy hats, and maybe someone will stop us and ask to have their picture taken next to two girls they’ve mistaken for reality television stars. We will say yes, of course.

Las Vegas on a Thursday. Sin City, baby. We will leave, my thumb out towards the highway, and her middle finger waving goodbye to this place that was always just a little too small. Old trucks and fast cars will carry us, state by state, and we will meet strangers and collect their stories. We will make it to Vegas with fifty bucks left between us. The very first night, we will put two Jacksons on a black seventeen, and we will win. We will play all night and become filthy rich, and stay drunk on tequila and the notion that we never have to go home.

Italy on a Saturday. Tuscany, to be exact. We don’t know how to get there, but we do know that we will wear only dresses in the summer and we will have a vineyard where we can pick our own grapes to eat, but mostly we will drink them. Italian men will say tu sei la ragazza dei miei sogni, and we will not know what they mean but we will swoon over the accent anyway. We will watch the sun set over a field of sunflowers from our small patio and we will laugh and say that we cannot imagine how we ever lived without the cheese and the music and da Vinci and this damned good olive oil.

Monday and we decide on New Orleans. They say it’s everyone’s favorite, America’s Most Interesting City, they say. Plus, we once had a friend who came from there and he said Nawlins and I decided a long time ago it was a place for me. We will go to Nawlins and eat crawdads and the locals will say it’s crayFISH, honey. We will drink and dance and shout, and we will lift our shirts for beads just once so we can say we did. I will touch a gator while she takes my picture, and I will lead her photo shoot as she tries on ten different masks in shades of purple and gold. Later, we will sit in rockers on a back porch overlooking a bayou and the smell of citronella and shrimp jambalaya will carry us away until bedtime.

We are always plotting our runaway.

She says let’s move to the Big Apple, and I say let’s try the Big Pineapple instead because we’re both too messy to share a tiny studio and I think we will look pretty with hibiscus in our hair.

I say let’s go to Tennessee and live in the woods. We can float down rivers on inner tubes and catch our own meals. She reminds me that I can’t even kill a spider, nor have I ever liked the taste of fish, and she’s not much of a swimmer, anyway. Maybe Texas, she says. They have rivers, probably, and I hear everything is bigger there.

We are always plotting our runaway. Two girls from North Carolina, and we may never really leave because there are grandparents to care for and newborns to hold and friends who will never wear out their welcome in our lives. Still, we plot our runaway. A back up plan. Just in case.

Driving lessons with Dad.

I learned to drive on the winding country road I grew up on. My dad was in the passenger seat. Several times, he told me that if I just looked at the inside of an upcoming curve, instead of the outside, the ride would be much more smooth.

It wasn’t until years later that I realized he wasn’t just giving me driving instructions.

Thanks, Dad, for teaching me that what’s inside is more important.

Neverland is a place in the south.

Waiting for that moment.

Driving and all the windows are down.

A fight between hair and wind. And wind wins.

Trees and lots of trees and more trees,

And, soon, to be only silhouettes of trees,

Once the sun sinks low enough.

But not just yet.

The sun still shines, not bright enough to burn,

So the sun glows, maybe. And not shy.

Don’t look away. Stare.

That sky.

Pink and purple. Still blue, too.

And kind of orange and red.

And there’s no real rainbow,

Because there’s been no rain,

But the colors are all there.

Waiting for that moment.

The sky goes dark,

And the sun is almost ready to set or sleep or hide.

Almost.

Everything is visible, still.

Barely.

There they are.

One flicker, and two, and ten.

Thousands.

Shining stars, but not in the sky.

In the weeds.

And on the hay bales.

And across the fields

And through the trees.

They blink on and off in a perfect, chaotic rhythm.

All at once.

Five years old again, and fairies might be real.

And Neverland is a place in the south.

The whole world is a magical, sparkling wonderland.

This is that moment.

Dear blog.

Dear blog,

I have not forgotten you. Summer is here and there is tequila to be consumed and suntan oil to be rubbed. There are long naps to be taken and fluffy clouds to be watched. There are breezes to be felt and conversations with wonderful friends to be had. My humble little blog, writing you is one of my favorite things, but summer is my very favorite thing. I will be back to attend to you at some point this week. Promise. No hard feelings?

Love, love, love, and a popsicle for good measure,

Dani

Nothing to do but cry ourselves numb.

I have a friend in Joplin. She is alive, but devastated by the way nature ripped her town to shreds and ruined the lives of so many around her.

I also have friends in Tuscaloosa, where the same thing happened just weeks ago. And in my own state, a few weeks before that, we experienced a similar disaster.

I am alive and perfectly well. My friends survived their storms, too. The people I love, they are living, and I am thankful for this. I am.

But tonight, my heart is broken because life can be so ugly. This world can be unfair and cruel. And sometimes, there is no explanation at all for why awful things happen, and that means there is nowhere to put the pain we feel. It burns into our hearts these holes that cannot be patched. And then it becomes too much and there is nothing to do but cry ourselves numb.

Tomorrow, life will resume. I am alive and I will laugh because there are wonderful and happy things all around. I can see those things if I look at life from just the right angle. Step back, tilt head, squint. The good is there, somewhere. Despite all the bad, life will be beautiful again, maybe. Tomorrow, I will find the blessings in the midst of the tragedies.

But tonight, I don’t want to try. Tonight, there is just heartbreak.

These people that I love.

My baby sister just returned home this week from a trip she and a friend took to New York City. We sat at the table this afternoon, eating mac and cheese and laughing so hard about Cosmopolitan magazine diagnosing us as being love-avoidant that milk came shooting out of my sister’s nose.

My mom’s brother and sister are in town. Tonight, they’re piled into my grandparents’ house, along with each of their pets. Close quarters, it is, with four humans, two dogs, and an ancient, cranky cat.

My neighbor, who is my sister’s best friend and really more of a sister to me than a neighbor, came home tonight. She survived her first year of college, and she is sleeping on my sister’s bedroom floor. One of them is snoring, my neighbor, I’m pretty sure. They’ve had so many slumber parties over the years that I can tell through the wall one’s snore from the other’s.

Everyone’s here. These people that I love with everything I am are nearby and I can reach out and touch them if I need to and it is proof for my eyes and heart that they are okay. Laughing and bickering and breathing and perfectly okay. Moments like this are few and far between. Soon, these people, my people, will leave again and my world will once more become this unsteady place where all the bad things can happen to any one of them. I will be on edge until the next moment I hear the snoring and the dogs barking and my sister laughing so hard she expels milk.

Then, I will exhale again.

Living for the summer.

I make it through the days.

A Diet Coke or two or five.

A few hours of sleep whenever I can get it.

Good jokes and great friends.

I survive.

Summer is on the horizon.

A margarita or two or five.

Late nights and bringing out stars with bursts of laughter.

Neglected friendships rekindled in the heat.

I live.