Discovering there was one word for the day after today and another for the day before today

When my mother ran across the tomato patch in high heels in response to my screams due to getting my foot trapped  in a lumber stack at my grandfather’s lumber yard.

Realizing that my experience can never join  with someone else’s

Sleeping with my grandmother on the farm in North Carolina, listening to the coal settle in the grate of the woodstove and watching the lights of passing cars reflected all across the walls, silently.

Connecting with the red clay under the clothesline on the farm.

Taking naps on the farm in the attic with the rain tapping the metal roof over my head.

Watching an  ant parade on the farm and believing that they had left me a metal belt buckle, beside the parade route.

Winning a dictionary for my home room in a sixth grade poster contest with my friend Janet Rich.

Miss Arveson giving me two A+’s on my written Western Civilization assignment in the ninth grade.

Going to bed at night and holding my arm straight up until I felt it move as though by God, in Chevy Chase.

Finding my first flint spear point on top of the ground and under a big tree in North Carolina, and feeling a connection over time with when it came to be there.

Getting out of the tub in Gainesville, Florida, and receiving a revelation that in our dreams we’re all together, united.

My first taste of a Milky Way Bar after World War Two.

The first sight of my beautiful first born daughter.

On the way home, holding her up in my arms to see the world.

In Miami, my eleventh grade teacher mis-counting by one an answer on the semester test so that I didn’t have to repeat the entire semester after moving from South Carolina.

After telling my grandfather in Chevy Chase that Bob Swilling asked me out on a date, his response was not negative but “Do you want to go?”  (I didn’t).

My sister bursting into tears when I told her my last born was mongoloid.

My therapist telling me I had good protoplasm.

Graduate school, where everyone was on the same wavelength.

My son calling to say Happy Mother’s Day  today.