mash

This evening my friend shared a beautiful sprig of prose with me. Just a snippet of the scent of her person. We sometimes pass words back and forth like notes under a school desk. Secrets. Longings. Fragile things. Like little girls we tell stories back and forth, wide-eyed.

Remember playing MASH? And putting to paper all the what-if’s? And then scratching off the possibilities until left with your would-be future? We all want to know where we will end up. Whether it be a Mansion, Apartment, Shed or House. We want to know who and what we will be. Where we will be. And exactly what will be our lives. I remember holding my breath and hoping my lot would be a very specific set of possibilities. Alas, MASH doesn’t work that way. And neither does life. You get what you get. And then you make the very most of it.

So what of these tender musings passed back and forth between grown women with girls’ dreams? What of making-believe and making-do? What of words and vision, ideas and business? My friends are lucid dreamers. I’m careful to keep myself inspired by each one. Each of us is working with what’s been allotted. So many variables to a dream made life. And maybe it’s a shed for now…but that doesn’t stop us from believing for mansions. Or from wearing heels on a threshing floor, or updos in the midst of down-trodden despair. We keep telling each other the stories, and sharing the foolish things. Because these things remain for a reason, until they are well realized.