Here in the Land of Lakes, not quakes

waiting for the fireworks

The barometer of my body says it's in a new and different place. My hair wants to part on the other side, and I'm still lost in this curvy city by the big river. But last night I connected the place where I went out for a glass of wine with the neighborhood I live in and the neighborhood where my St. Paul condo was. Three dots on a map of a zillion dots.

I'm afraid to drive here. Don't get into the bike lane when you turn, and watch out for the orange cones, orange cones, orange cones. There are giant potholes and trenches in the interstates (don't say freeway) from all the construction. And don't say the 94 or the 35W. Here you just take plain 94 or 35 W to wherever. And let's not talk about the W. Anxiety ramps up in the car like it did after the divorce when I marooned myself in my condo in South Pasadena, going to almost nothing. But I can walk or take the train. My new (to me) red Subaru has been christened Freiya, and I will drive her...eventually.

The sky is bigger and bluer here. Sky is distinctly separate from clouds. No grey linty what-is-what sky. Storm clouds barrel in every other night or so, and  lightning unzips the darkness. The 5th floor is a very satisfactory height from which to view the drama.

There is free yoga in the park before the farmer's market. Two seconds lying on the grass and I'm five years old because it smells like childhood. (That's me bottom right.)

The produce in the farmers' market cascades into more variety every week. First it was only asparagus and rhubarb and peonies. Then morels and bok choy. Now squash and lettuce, lettuce, lettuce, green beans, new kinds of spinach, gooseberries and red currants, and so much more.

A huge crowd came to fireworks along the river. Standing room only by the moment of showtime,and then bound in by rows and rows of people. It  sounds terrible, but it wasn't. The next morning it was all cleaned up even though they said 75,000 people came.

My living room still has its wall of boxes of books, and file boxes strewn with things I'm too lazy to file because it means bending down or lifting the box. And the TV is on a card table, but my bedroom is perfect with my favorite art hanging above the bed. And there's my desk where maybe the muse can find me if I ever sit down there.

Sometimes the morning light makes the view look like a painting. I see beauty everywhere, but I miss my friends. I wish they were here in the land of lakes instead of the land of quakes.