In Response to Lindsey

Yesterday I forgot my cell phone password and today I forgot my blog's username. I also forgot to post once a week, a pledge I made to this blog, and something my friend Lindsey reminded me I hadn't been doing. So, in effort not to forget anything else, a thing I think I'm most scared of as an adult on many levels, I wrote this little poem. I miss writing and painting. I've been spending a lot of time "not thinking" and "just doing" as life often demands. I spend all day Saturday with my cross country team, and I've been finding out about coaching, mostly by watching our head coach. I've also been finding out about how much kids just want encouragement... I wish I was in better moods in the morning and after work to give it to them. I'm pretty sure running and enduring, and hopefully God through those things, are teaching them a lot without me.




The Trip Back

I miss writing-
7:14 a.m. and the space
between leaving
and arriving on a yellow school bus,
plastic seats soaked from last Friday’s football team.

I sit watching-
front seat behind the driver,
me unsocial and not
making friends or eating candy with teenage
cross country runners
because it’s too early.

I sleep memories-
April in 2000,
my own socks soaked
and muscles aching
with the pleasure of pain riding through a race.

I switched places-
somewhere between
16 and 24 my name slid into “coach,”
asking me if I really was one, or if I
liked the one I had become.

I think maybe-
here’s not a bad place to be,
watching their drama and gossip,
their loving new trends and sad songs
as they wonder why bad things happen.

I wish simplicity-
to take their black
and white together with the grey
and let them believe.

I wish the same for me,
8 away from 16, hoping to throw some
light to at least one of them
as we all ride home.