duhpursuit

I tried looking for unexpected gifts today. There were some, but the things I’ve lost kept coming back to me. The blood I lost when I stubbed my toe trying to water the plants. The sanity the mourning dove lost when the hose rained down on the hanging basket where it has made its nest. The boy named Micheal who I loved in daycare who had lost a leg, and the memory of how his blue eyes looked into me and smiled, fierce and direct like late afternoon sunlight. He was my dance partner. Heel, toe, heel in step together, our doughy bodies wrapped in fluorescent spandex and sequins as we smiled from the thickly curtained stage, the red fabric wrapping us together as we ran into the wings. The silver ring that looped my thumb all those years and was lost somewhere in the desert. The fear I felt that first day of school when they looked back at me and I wondered if I would be able to do this, let them in, let them go. All these near endings. Memory splintered and deep working its way to the surface.