You know my love affair with photographing flowers. I was taken with the beauty of these yesterday as I was sorting through old memories. Brenda and Debbie told me early in the day that if I needed a hug while I was going through yesterday, that all I had to do was ask.




Well, in classic Laura form, I managed to get distracted by side projects all day long, and seemed to be busy at every moment, but could not name one thing I had accomplished in full. I sat down to dinner with my aunts and afterwards we went for a ride, me going on the clause that a McDonald's ice cream cone would be my sway-factor in participation.

I let them know that I would probably be working well into the night, thanks to a self-hating habit I developed as a young girl to complete my Saturday chores when my Cabbage Patch Kid looked like so much more fun: when I begin ripping things apart to organize, I scatter bits through my walkways and upon my bed so that it must be taken care of before my day ends. I would be hauling things to the garage for hours and hours to come, I advised.

"Why the garage?" you may find yourself asking. Well, to be frank with you, I have a lot of extraneous belongings. I am sneaking up on the ripe old age of 25. Now, my aunts who have couple-two-three decades on me are of the same gene pool...which I observed earlier yesterday morning when Debbie parked at The Grasshopper coffeehouse. "Hmm...I think it's safe to say that my parking skills are genetic," I said, looking at the vehicle parked perfectly between the lines...of two stalls. Brenda agreed. We're all crappy parkers...Whee!

Needless to say, they've accrued extraneous belongings to a greater degree than myself.

Digging into my daunting task, I conferred with Brenda. "How do I dispose of this stuff?" I mean, and I'm just talking about the belongings I have stored at this house...which is nothing compared to what I have stored in my Dad's garage! Holy clutter, Batman!  I'll deal with that  local another weekend. But as both my aunts and myself have things we don't need at all—I mean, it's just the law of life that as soon as you get rid of something you'll find a use for it...and I'm totally prepared to mourn the loss of that shattered glass table-top and the mildewy pillows, both—we are renting a dumpster. Well, Brenda is renting a dumpster...well, Debbie is calling for the dumpster and Brenda is paying for it...and I get to trash things without fee or task.

So, for the mean time, the garage is a placeholder for junk. I was carrying objects there until nearly midnight, a happening that speaks so clearly of my mother's influence. My paternal grandmother would always say "When the sun sets in the West, the laziest do their best." I was always deeply offended as a witless youngster, not realizing she was referring to sleep, and told my grandmother that my mother often cleans house in the evening and I've never known a less lazy person!

Indeed, Mom would get her pick-up-and-go as the day grew dim. So it is with me...it is night when there's less to distract me, like resident baby raccoons. The tears took hold only as the fatigue set in, and I realized it's been just shy of a year since I was doing this back-breaking work last. So much has happened in a year. I observed the beginning of June to myself, the beginning of June when I first truly felt the bite of a rabid reality last year.

I collapsed into bed and felt my throbbing muscles, my shins that were already bruising...sometimes the physical pain feels good...it takes your mind off of the mess inside your head and inside your heart. In the end, I will have an emptiness and a regret, but I'll find the beauty in my surroundings again, I always do and I always will—another gift from Mom. She gave me a guide by which to live, and I will be forever grateful. This too shall pass.