Girl's Gone Child: The Month in Moments: May

We went to Palm Springs over the weekend to celebrate Archer's 10th birthday. I'm going to write a post about that later... the birthday, that is.The turning ten... the double digits... The notion that nothing has changed and everything has... The last few weeks have moved quickly in slow motion. I hold onto a hand until it tells me to let go. Everyone is wearing mismatched socks. Life is unfair. And beautiful. The sky is heavy. We need more rain. I have so many words in my head I don't even know where to put them this month. I feel like I need to lay everything out on the floor first or something. Make neat little piles of ideas. Spread them across a page until I can see all of the letters to all the words to all the sentences.

Clouds change so quickly when they resemble something else. And before you know it, the elephant you're pointing at has become an eagle. Or a dolphin. Or it's gone...

Earlier this month, I chaperoned Archer's field trip to Sacramento. We learned about the Gold Rush and California Government. We learned about our state history in all its gore and guts. The laws and the lawlessness... All lands have brutal beginnings, I guess, but it jolted me just the same. To be on a bus and listen to the statistics... to stand on land that wasn't supposed to be ours. Or maybe it was. I don't know. Does anyone belong anywhere? Ours is such a presumptuous word.

We had a magical time on that trip just the same. The best time. Field trips are everything when you're little and now I understand why my mom always chaperoned mine. You get to sit with your kid on the bus and listen to them learn. You get to pan for gold like a 4th grader in soggy shoes. You get to eat lunch out of a paper bag and hold everyone's cameras.