I am supposed to be writing.  But right now I just want to lay in the sun that has been absent for so long and I want to close my eyes for seconds at a time, curl my toes, stretch long, long, long my legs, my back, my chest.  I want to think about breathing.  I want to think about growing.  I want to think about the stilling and the bursting.  I want to think long and hard and good about it all.

I looked long and hard and good and then I looked again.  This face.  This body that I am fighting, always.  Those lines, greys, spots.  I looked hard and I sighed slow, watched the corners of the mouth reach towards the ears, watched freckles blink and disappear and the lines under the eye deepen, swallow, tease.  And in the lines the stories.  The constant pace forward with the past always present here, when I look good and long.

And it is the new that surprises me.  This hair.  When did it lose its softness, grow so unruly, become boss.  Those eyes-- now steady set, unmatched by the bottom lip that is swollen, full of haughty waiting.  When?  I am supposed to be writing but I find I am making introductions.

Hello, darling old dear.  Hello, dear new darling.