walking in between time

it is 5/4/10 it is 7:38 it is Tuesday and I am 51

I am trying for an optimal life. I took a walk, for the minimal 1/2 an hour. I had my cell phone with me. I took walks as a child, and never took a phone with, never ran into too much trouble and I always made it home. As I walked I thought, “This is the next part of my life.” My youngest turned 21 yesterday and so I guess she’s grown now. And now I need to figure out what it is that I want.

I get out of my car, parked by Lake Harriet. I walk for just a bit, and my eyes catch sight of a man with something nearby on the grass. Little pictures, and a sign that says, “Buy Art.” I look up, I see a shock of white hair and the most beautiful blue eyes. He smiles and says, “Hello.” I say, “Hello” back. I keep walking, fast, thinking about his eyes.

The sky was grey, cloudy, it was windy. Thought it might rain. The lake looked like gray swirling magic. The green trees danced in the wind. The clouds raced around the sky, thinking, “Should we stop and rain here or just blow on by?”

I walked by the Lake, and imagined that maybe one day I’d live by the sea. And then wondered what was I thinking? Why being here, at the lake wasn't good enough, beautiful enough? Why was it so hard for me to be present in the present? But it was. I just don’t know how sometimes it just seems that I am stuck in this place in between time. Trying to untangle the past, to see how it is impacting my present, maybe change, and change how it impacts the future. Trying for something better. And in the trying, it seems I lose my footing on today.

My therapist says I’ve been through a lot, that it was hard. It was. So, it goes without saying I am looking for not so hard in the future, not so alone. But how? I am making new friends. I’m finding people to spend time with besides my children. I am deciding to quit trying to fit into my family of origin, it’s too late anyhow, the window has closed and they have locked the door.

We have grown into the future. I walk around Lake Harriet, and I remember that my older brothers would let me tag along sometimes to go ice skating while they played hockey when the lake was frozen. My mom made me take swimming lessons in the cold mornings of early summer. Little kids with goosebumps, teeth chattering. I learned to swim. Swim into the future, right through the present when things are hard. Swim, swim to tomorrow.

Wondering, and asking myself, “What is it you want?” I once told my dad what I wanted. It was in high school, my senior year, and he asked, “Well, what do you want to do next year?”
“I want to go to Paris, Dad, and learn to be a pastry chef.”
His response? “Well, that doesn’t seem like a very good idea.”
Hmm, not such a good idea. That was the past. I still want to go to Paris, but not to learn to bake. I just want to go and take walks and drink cafe au lait. In my reality, in my real life, in the present, I go home, write, and go to bed; then I will wake up, go to work. I prayed to the wind as it blew across the lake, blow something new into my life.