Sea Dragons

When I got home from my trip trip from Chicago, my son told me the cats hadn’t eaten in two days. I tried to hold Lucy, but she wasn’t having it, but she crawled onto my chest in the middle of the night and stayed put. I haven’t seen Charlie though. I guess I am being punished for leaving him again.

Chicago was great. The Art Institute. The Bean. Deep dish pizza. River taxis. Shedd Aquarium. I fell in love with this creature called the sea dragon. It was like a prehistoric fish floating to its own rhythm. There is something mesmerizing about watching fish. The colors. The patterns. It’s like looking at a piece of art that is constantly in motion.

July 2 was our last day in Chicago. I woke up and remembered immediately that it was exactly ten years from the day my parents were buried. It caught my breath, but don’t flatten me. I wasn’t even that sad; my parents are still with me, no matter where I am. Their bonds are strong and ever reaching. Being with my brother these last weeks has reminded me of the solid foundation we were given.

On my last night in Chicago, I was sitting across the table from my brother at an Italian restaurant. He said, “We had a lot of fun growing up.” Even though the table was full of people, for a moment our eyes locked and that statement hung in the air between us, making an instant movie of all our adventures as kids. I got flashes of us standing on the top of a waterfall at a pool in Acapulco, gathering the courage to jump off. I remembered pulling our money together at Gibson’s to buy a raft to sail down the ditch in our neighborhood. I remembered the hours in the backseat of the car playing games that we made up. I saw him as a young man with big shoulders knocking on the door of a guy who stole my stereo, ready to try to get it back for me. He was always so brave and strong and ready for anything. Saying we had a lot of fun growing up is the absolute truth, but it also just doesn’t cover the depth of all that we shared. Or how lucky we are to have had what we had.

So much has happened in my travels that I feel like I have been journeying for a thousand years and have returned to the start of the map a different person. I have been reminded of all my blessings and strengths, then returned home with the power of choice in my pocket. I can feel everyone around me, including myself, trying to predict the next roll of the dice. I need to float around like the sea dragon and think about the next direction.