I’ve seen recent pictures of Lone Pine on Wikipedia … it doesn’t seem much has changed, although I noticed Mt. Whitney is no longer 14,496 feet tall. It has grown. The AM/PM Mini Market is now a Mobil gas, but the familiar landmarks — the Dow Villa, Joseph’s Bi-Rite Market, and the Merry-Go-Round — are still intact. From those pictures, too, it seems Lone Pine still has only the one stop light at Main Street and Whitney Portal Road.

How wicked nostalgia can be.

I can feel the summer heat on my arms and even hear the wind blowing across Owen’s dry lake. I remember an after school water-balloon fight we had the summer I turned 15. I begged Johnny Bartlett to let me cross the street before he launched the pumpkin-sized balloon he held aimed at me. I’d never dreamed a water-balloon could be quite that large. Johnny taunted me with it the whole time, but kept his word as I slunk by with both hands out to prove I was unarmed. The balloon sounded like a miniature tsunami when it exploded on the sidewalk and soaked my legs from knees to feet. I squealed and tried to run, but my feet squished and slid all over their flipflops, making my escape little more than comic relief.

I think Eric or Steve A. tagged me in the back as I tried to cross the next intersection.

Someone alerted the local posse. It seemed the patrons of Joseph’s and the video store didn’t appreciate our water war. I don’t recall hitting any unarmed civilians, but my aim has never been that good. It was a good battle though, before it ended. We had at least 15 participants and the sidewalks on both sides of Main Street from the high school to the park were covered for the following week in colorful bits of broken balloon to commemorate our victories and defeats. We had a food fight of equal proportions during my senior year and that time the sidewalks were stained in mustard, catsup, and blue cake frosting. Come to think of it, so was I.

I can’t imagine what visiting will be like this year. Will it be like seeing an old friend, or will I feel distant and aloof, so far removed from those days and my memories? I don’t know. What I do know, though, is that it was a good place to be young.

We drank root beer all night,
sprawled like shipwrecked sailors
hoarding a last cask of rum.
Unladylike, draped over couches,
recliners, and a dusty, overstuffed chair,

we laughed ourselves purple
recalling the past – Duran Duran,
the trampling waves of Punk Rock,
leg warmers, and DayGlo pinks.
We hadn’t laughed so much
since the dawn following
our senior prom, the day
we ascended into adulthood –
A state of calamity we wouldn’t
recognize for another ten years.

This morning we pause to see
the dawn, sip herbal tea while
rubbing the mirth from our eyes,
each of us silently knowing
life is still larger, sighs deeper
when our plural becomes one.
The universe redistributes our
fragments — dove-like treasures
from a crumbled sand dollar,
pieces of eight snapped and halved
to pay local merchants,

We’re never strangers here
in the same room,
born of the same blood
when the universe we know
recreates and we begin anew.

12 March 2007

Although October is National Breast Cancer Awareness month, I’d like to engender more awareness by pointing you to Susan G. Komen for the Cure. This organization was founded 25 years ago by a sister for a sister, and, today, pointing the way to this organization — although there are many worthwhile organizations fighting breast cancer — feels most appropriate to me. As well, please encourage the women in your life to do their monthly breast exams, annual check ups, and yearly mammograms (for those women aged 40 and over).

It seems that early detection is our biggest ally against this beast.