5.10 Practical vs. Trivial

They heard the ice cream truck's song, I heard, "Mama, please?" A little part of me had always been grateful that this particular truck driver needed to be chased halfway down the street. My excuse was always that it would ruin their dinner but really it was losing money on some triviality.

But what else is childhood for, then exploration and frivolity? I should spare them from practicality until they have experienced enough of life to want it themselves, shouldn't I?

As long as they're little I'll let them run after the ice cream and debate their favorite flavors.

5.9 It Don't Mean a Thing

We had our own bus that we drove and slept in together. Brass cradled at our feet, passing miles and miles of America. We performed in richer rooms that we could ever stay in. Because our skin was shades darker than theirs. The people who gave their money to hear us play and danced with their sweetheart had the gilded bedrooms to turn in to. We would never see more than the first floor and what the mangers decided to show us. When the gigs were done we had to find a new place to stay. Even though we brought the Swing.

5.7 Father - the Creator

Let's start at the very beginning
The best place to start.
When you read you begin with
"In the beginning
Was the Word."
When you sing you begin with,
"Jesus loves me,
This I know."
Do - rei - me
Father - Son - Spirit
The parts of the Trinity just happen to be
Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

Father - the creator of all things
Son - the promise fulfilled
Spirit - the messenger between

Do - a pant for living water
Rei - a strip of His glory
Me - for whom He died

That will bring us back to do
Father, Son, Holy Spirit,
Do - Rei - Me

5.6 False Expectations

We left home on a boat that sailed the ocean blue. Pages were written home from my sister of the wonder and freedom in this new land of good and plenty. A husband and new abode added to her happiness. Selling home, boarding windows, draping sheets over heirloom furnishing, saying good bye to maids, Papa was handed our tickets. Traveling was only made better by my sister's excitement and promise of how it would be worth it.

Her sheets are draped on furniture to dry, windows boarded for lack of glass. But we can't go back the way we came.

5.5 Living in a Library

Her posture was perfectly shaped for book reading. Shoulders curved and bent over books that were lifted up to eager eyes, ready to wander over sculpted words twisted into life size characters and real places. Rows of thick and etched spines lined the rooms around her as each one has been read, cried over, and then looked for in real life. "It could never be" finales were shelved away on one side of memory and space. Because after all, it's a truth universally acknowledged that a story beginning with "once upon a time" has to end with "happily ever after."

5.4 Independence

A thin strip of sunset was left as fireworks burst open above it, to the left moonlight shone in a long ribbon over the lapping water. The fireworks competed for attention, racing each other to explosion. People appeared throughout the streets, like firework hunters looking for the best place to watch. Calling out to each other and chasing the sparks down, pointing when they're ready to explode, and turning to the direction of the light. All along the coast they popped up in colorful glistening showers, tossing their ashen leftovers into the water. The sea breeze ripping the entire time.

5.3 The American Dream

First we slept on mattresses in the porch, the sun waking us up and sending us out the door to the field. Working again and again like our father and grandfather before, each pursuing to make it better than before. Getting coins pressed in my hand over and over again until it became a bank account in my name. A college degree and hearing "good job." A marriage license with a "Mrs." and a birth certificate with "born to." Driving a new car into the neighborhood and a house deed with my signature. But the house next door is bigger.