Manufactured by Westeel Stelco.

I'll pick up your hand and slowly blow your little mind
'Cause I made my mind up you're going to be mine
I'll tell you right now
Any trick in the book now, baby, all that I can find

In my grandparent's old house the furnace was on pull-chains and the stove ate big split-wood logs by the hour to cook all-day weekend dinners like pot roast with fresh peas and boiled potatoes. Here things aren't much different except that my twenty-year old furnace swallows natural gas and my oven plugs into the wall. I still cook all-day dinners sometimes.

Today was a cool and breezy day. Managed to get the groceries this morning. Bringing home string-tied celery, baskets of vegetables, paper-wrapped meats and a big jar of honey always makes me feel kitschy, vintage. Fifties, early sixties maybe. Makes me want to put on my apron and hum aloud while I scrub floss away from fresh ears of corn, the radio on the counter belting out Donovan or The Shangri-las. Ben would come in, muck dirt all over my freshly-mopped kitchen floor, one single lock of black hair falling onto his forehead, his clean-shaven, hungry grin huge and wide for me and kiss me with one hand while he changed the radio with the other to the talk-station for the news and weather. The kids would be upstairs, playing quietly in the sun on the upstairs porch floor, Lego bricks spread all over the place in their bid to recreate the diner we like to stop at for milkshakes and french fries on hot summer evenings after a cruise around town to see the magnolia trees in bloom.

But not tonight, because tonight we're having the roast I've had simmering in the oven all day, and even though my grandmother's radio would have been tuned to the hymns, I think she might approve of my efforts to pick and chose what I need and want to keep from the memories I have inside my head. I hope so anyway.

There are more memories to sort through. I just can't quite reach those yet. Some idiot built a wall in front of them and it looks like I'm going to have to tear it down. I'll do that, as soon as I find myself a vintage sledgehammer. Stay tuned.

You don't need to know these things.

Weeping shades of indigo
Shed without a reason

It's Friday. A sunny, cool day, perfect for swinging in the hammock in the front porch with the windows closed, curtains opened to allow the sun to warm the room. I've got my laptop and a big bowl of pistachios, iced tea and plans to drag everyone grocery shopping after dinner this evening so that I can go back to dreaming about being Gilda Texter in Vanishing Point instead of Jennifer Aniston in Rock Star, as well as lying on the grass in the sun at the park and finishing the book, which is so good it's a travesty that I've only been picking it up very late at night if I can't sleep.

Sometimes I am both characters in both films. Yesterday Ben took me up to the lake, the farthest I have been from home on a motorcycle in forever, and he found a quiet network of dirt roads between fields far away from prying eyes, slid me out of my jeans and boots and wrapped me in his leather jacket and then we christened the Harley, because there's no better way to spend a sunny Thursday morning than perched on the back of a parked motorcycle with your husband defiling you to the delight of whatever prairie wildlife, and that one trucker might happen to witness. (I'm sorry, mister, thank you for not stopping). The legend of Tucker Max lives on.

Besides, if I am to drive around the back yard naked on a motorcycle we're going to have to get one that's my size. (First one to make a scooter joke will be punished severely.)

Had my first waxing of the season. Will not be going back anytime soon. It was successful, I believe all my hair was ripped out at soul-level and I'm left with smooth legs for the first part of the summer. I don't grow regular hair, I have a nice white downy baby-duckling coat that probably wouldn't even have to be removed until I'm in very bright light and I emit a fuzzy all-over glow and that just isn't cool to me. In addition to the soul-baring I discovered my skin doesn't like whatever wax was used and I'm also covered in a rash again. Apparently it will go away in a few days. Gee, thanks. Just what I need, to itch my way through another season. (Again, please refrain from jokes, none of you are brave enough to do it.)

And lastly, I have new summer dresses. And they make me feel pretty good. Or maybe that's good and pretty? Whatever. It all works. Though I won't need them if I get a little motorcycle for the yard, now, will I?

I am trying to break your heart.

I'd always thought that if I held you tightly
You'd always love me like you did back then
Then I fell asleep and the city kept blinking
What was I thinking when I let you back in?

This morning is all about loud music, running fast and hard for over an hour, which made me feel somewhat human and less flighty this morning, and a scalding hot shower followed by a hotter cup of coffee. Dark roast, thanks. I have no use for weakling beans.

Post-shower I put on my skinny jeans, black skims and cardigan and my favorite dark grey t-shirt and I came downstairs to pronounce myself human again (out loud) after almost fifteen hours of resembling the little monster who lives in the pantry again.

Yesterday I heard something that made me think and I'm still racing towards it, wedged between Ben's back and the sissy bar, my wrists clenched around his chest for dear life, face smushed against helmet smushed against his leather jacket.

The difference between the way you are and the way everyone else is, Bridget, is that they are content until otherwise stirred to sadness or anxiety and you are the complete opposite of that.

Granted, it was an offhand comment made somewhere mired in a whole big session on What's Wrong with Bridget's Head, Part 78328173457598821-F but it stuck out to me because it explains precisely why I get so frustrated.

(I'm falling. Ohshitohshitohshit hard landing.)

I felt myself sliding down the hill. By four in the afternoon my legs were dangling freely over the edge of the day and I had two tufts of grass clenched tightly in my fists, unwilling to lose any more ground. The guitar cords swelled around me and leached into my brain and I was screaming and it just wound up lost and distorted in the noise and it got so bad I almost let go so that I could put my hands up over my ears but I didn't because if I checked out of the day right then it would have been a longer climb back and I'm worn out. I don't want to make that climb.

So I kept holding on.

Eventually a head appeared over the guardrail, Ben's face smiling down at me. He yelled down that I should grab his hand.

Fuck you, I yelled, It was your driving that flung me off the motorcycle in the first place and put me here. Don't think for a second you can risk my life and then turn around and save it too.

He shrugged and took a bite of his sandwich, chewing thoughtfully and looking up at the sky.

Fine, do it yourself then. And he settled in to watch.

I'll be damned if I'm going to let anyone fling me off any of these cliffs. I can jump off just fine. But I won't because the contentment is worth this stupid climb. So I let go with one hand, swung as hard as I could and grabbed at a patch of vines and grass a little higher up, giving me a better purchase.

He nodded and hollered an encouragement. I missed it when the wind blew softly in my ears.

I forced my arms to pull up my body and dug the toes of my boots in to the soft earth. Another foot. Another dozen inches closer to safety.

A good half hour later, my hand landed an inch from Ben's avengers and he reached down and took my hands and lifted me onto my feet, on the safe-side of the guardrail. He spun me around to brush away errant grass and leaves and then held me out at arm's length, staring at me like he's never seen me before.

Tougher than you look, bumblebee.

I shook my head, because I really don't think I am.

You wouldn't have been able to pull that off a year ago.

Sure I would! The inside of my head screamed at him. I'm a pro.

Outwardly, I just burst into tears, because sometimes not a damned thing inside my head matches what happens outside of it. He knows. And he pulled me in against his chest until I couldn't breathe anymore. Until my legs were no longer rubber and my soul was wedged back in place. My own voice echoed through my head, drowning out the bike rumbling, Ben talking, everything around me. It kept saying You're okay. You're okay. You're okay.

I've never heard that voice before. Not in here, anyway.

Contentment. It might be within my reach after all. I just seem to have incredibly short arms.

Ruffles.

CBC's Falcon cam is back up. It was called to my attention last year simply because the mom falcon is Princess and the dad falcon is Trey. Ruth and Henry have been enjoying watching the progress, since the babies just hatched.

If you'll notice the bucket they're sleeping in, hopefully it will prevent a repeat of last year.

My talents extend far beyond lap dances and now I have proof.

I am a busy girl this morning.

Sent Ben off for his appointments with a smile on his face. Had a long run. Planted the rest of the Clematis and the Osteospermums (terracotta), hosed down the cobblestones and hanging baskets. Cleaned and put away the tools, started laundry, and then, I got to work.

The funniest part of planning an afternoon of baking (banana bread, apple crisp, blueberry-apple muffins and cinnamon bread)? Precisely how many of the guys show up to just 'hang around'.

You would think I never feed them or something.

Breathe on my head and I'll love you for the rest of my days.

Sometimes life is just that simple.

I am the crisis
I am the bitter end
I'm gonna gun this down
I am divided
I am the razor edge
there is no easy now

This morning I woke up in the hammock, in the front porch, Ben holding me against his cool skin and the sound of heavy spring rain flooding my head. Sensory overload of the best kind, and a fitting end to a week that was long, arduous even. He whispered, his lips against the top of my head, a far away sound competing with the glorious rain.

Shhhhhhh. Everything's alright.

It is, oddly. And instead of making wrong choices we seem to be making right ones. Asking for help, time, hugs, clarification, space, less space, patience.

Maybe it's a novelty, maybe it's easier than reading minds and making assumptions and wishing and hoping. Maybe it works because many times over this week we've been surprised to ask for and get what we wanted, or what we needed, rather.

Maybe there is hope in small comforts and big love in broken hearts. Maybe no one cares if I have quiet meltdowns or silent melodramas playing out in my head or in my world. What matters to me is he cares, and that he's here. There's less saying things are better or fine, and more moments that we just know, and we take them. Ones when the house is still quiet and he can move me so I wake up to sounds I usually never hear. Ones where he holds my hand and for the moment I'm not pulling away to run, physically or emotionally. Ones that are steeped in new routines that are too new to remember they are routine, and so we hold them that much harder.

Life is never going to be perfect or much different than it is now. We'll struggle. I know that much now. But oddly, admitting this...it's not a disappointment.

It's a relief.

Life without an OFF button.

I'm officially volunteering to be the world's first brain transplant.

And we are home. Sometimes when you bite off more than you can chew, it helps to remember you can discreetly spit it into your napkin. Apparently Bridget is still not ready for solid food.

Or normal life, it seems, as boundless fear takes over every last good and wonderful thing. As I lay on my back in the twilight sky, the room with the skylights, Ben moving above me, my whole body sliding up with every thrust he made until he remembered to put one hand on top of my head to keep me down and that's when I always cross that line into painful pleasure, pinned to the floor. Instead my head went the other way and just decided to randomly begin to doubt that we could hold each other through the next day alone and I lost it and I was ashamed because this time there was no reasonable explanation for it. My head just went off and did it in spite of protests. In spite of the huge effort Ben had put into making a safe place for us, reassuring me I was so loved by him, holding me tight enough that physically I knew I was okay.

If only he could take my brain and put it in that fierce, loving embrace of his, I would be set for life.

Instead he listened to my shaky request for escape from the escape. Against his own wants, he brought me home a day early. I was not ready, that's all.

I wonder when I will be but no one has that answer. Fuck all of you then.

I can give you this.

He said that one sentence and that was it. And then he gave me his shadowed-face quiet grin that melts all the ice inside me into puddles of mush and he took my hand.

I could just buy it if you want.

I shook my head. Part of the appeal is that we have no responsibilities for this other than to enjoy it and leave it in good order when we go home.

Where did life turn to this? But I didn't say it out loud, I just crossed to the windows and looked out over the rainy ocean. He brought the ocean to me. All I had to do was take my seat and fasten the belt and then take a little ride up over the clouds and abra-cabridget, I am here in this glorious place where the grass on the dunes is so sharp you bleed just looking at it and the ocean churns up homesickness and comfort in one heaping spoonful. Just for you, princess.

Just for me, princess.

I don't deserve to be here.

But I am and I should enjoy it.

I turned around. He was going for a walk. The deal is we have forty-eight hours here. Ben deals in time because time is what we measure life against. Forty-eight is the magic one now, twenty-four to sleep and make love, twenty to write. The other four hours remaining are for searching for shells in the rain.

Sorry the weather isn't better.

The weather is perfect, Benjamin. Just perfect.

Better get started.

Yeah, I know.

I'll go get us some coffee and groceries.

Okay.

And Bridget?

Yes?

I love you.

I turned around to smile at him when I answered him, but he had already left.

Postcards from Haaay-Zeus.

It said only:

Thanks for getting things organized with my place. Now turn off the tunes and go do something, Bridget.

PS The girls here are easy. You could take lessons.

Love,

Dalt.

I wrote back:

Dear Dalton,

You're welcome. Stuff it.

Love, Bridget.

We're rolling down the highway
I'm rolling down my window
Then I stick my hand out and drive with it as it flows
If I started thinking, instead of looking back
You wouldn't see me sinking, before they covered up the tracks

This is what it feels like, coming down
We're all in the movie, can't turn it off or shut it down
This is what it feels like, if that's so
Then where is the director to tell us where the hell to go?

I've got this film in my head
They've scripted all that I've said
Let's make it real before we're dead,
because we're close enough, diamonds in the rough
Today's the day we finally say can't turn this movie off
And if we're not, we might as well just blow this all to hell
It's not a film or a fantasy we're not just make believe

So this is what it feels like, running through my lines
I never need to ad lib; I find it's just a waste of time
This is what it feels like, when the hero dies
On to the next one, funny how time flies

I've got this film in my head
They've scripted all that I've said
Let's make it of real before we're dead,
because we're close enough, diamonds in the rough
Today's the day we finally say can't turn this movie off
And if we're not, we might as well just blow this all to hell
It's not a film or a fantasy we're not just make believe

As long as I play me, and as long as you play you
God I love this scene, I gotta thank the cast and crew
Don't let the credits roll, don't let the credits roll

The Lake.

I woke up this morning in a PJ & B sandwich. Which isn't nearly as weird as it sounds if you knew us. PJ is our champion these days with Lochlan not far behind, since he has now settled back in to life here at a much slower pace.

Today isn't great, however. I feel stretched across my own emotions like a rubber band on a stick, cradling a stone hellbent for wounding. Life is summer in the grass, slingshot in hand, hoping to inflict pain, transferring it on the small insignificants of life in order to make it less for me, selfishly. I feel a bead of sweat rolling down my head and I squint one eye shut, taking aim with the other and I stick my tongue out just a little of one side of my mouth and pull my arm back and let it rip, holding my breath.

Miss.

I roll onto my back in the deep weeds, the sun blinding me, the heat stifling, crickets singing in the still air.

No fireflies in the day, I think to myself. I roll back over and sit up, brushing errant goldenrod out of my hair. I won't tie it back, I won't be a lady, I want to have fun like the boys do. I want to get dirty, bruised and bloody and I want to throw punches that knock people down, like they do and I want to be allowed to follow the path all the way to the creek bridge like they do and stay there until dark, fashioning boats of paper to send around the bend toward the lake. I want to join their sleepovers and have dinner at their houses and have a chance to hold the salamanders they catch and release.

I don't want to be late to every morning game of Kick the Can because my mother made me sit for twenty minutes while she brushes sticks out of my hair from the day before and plaits neat tight braids I will rip the ribbons from the moment I can't see my house anymore.

I don't want to have to go grocery shopping with her instead of staying at the lake with Bailey and her friends because I am the youngest and the smallest kid in the neighborhood and not that good of a swimmer besides.

Lochlan will rescue me if I fall in. At least he said he would (but would they please trust my life to this boy because he hasn't lied to me yet). Cole will be there, too. They're all good swimmers, please mom.

Stay off the tire swing, Bridget.

I will.

Stay with Bailey.

I will, I promise.

Those boys do treat you protectively. Just be careful.

I will.

I smiled and grabbed my backpack. The boys thought I was a pain in the ass. A nuisance. BridgetMOVEsoIcankicktheball. Yeeshyou'resuchababy. Those words smeared together, bouncing off me like rubber balls on pavement, I was so determined to be noticed. So determined to be seen as grown-up and independent. So determined to be one of them.

When I got there, I took a deep breath, spread out a towel closer to the boys than the girls on the grass and took off my shorts and my shirt, leaving just my swimsuit. Bailey laughed while I tried to act natural, teenagelike as I stretched out to catch some sun, just like Bailey, who was thirteen, and all her friends were doing.

Okay, bored.

I turned back over and leaned up on my elbows, watching the swimmers crossing to the tire swing.

Want to swim out?

It was Lochlan, who would turn fourteen that year, smiling at me. I mistook his interest, which was platonic brotherly affection and nothing more. I would never have to do that again.

Sure, I'll go.

I went, with instant regret, as we hit the water and he proceeded to ignore me, swimming quickly across the lake to the swing, to the other boys, gangly in their too-big trunks with their burgeoning muscles, on the cusp of becoming men, hell, on the cusp of becoming high-schoolers. I felt fear mingle with the cold water but dammit, I wanted to be with them, not with the girls. I swam but I couldn't make any progress and Lochlan wasn't really watching anyway so I finally gave up and returned to my towel. Bailey had been watching and she smiled, telling me I was too young to be hanging around with the boys. I sat up and looked at them, they were swinging far out over the water on the tire and doing flips off the branch and shoving each other in. I knew I was too young. I put my shirt back on and walked down to the water's edge. Cole was coming in to the beach, doing an easy crawl. His dark hair and blue eyes reflecting the water, he smiled up at me.

Going home already, Bridget?

Yeah, it's boring here.

In a few years it won't be.

I think I like the beach better.

Why?

You can find shells and sea glass and crabs. It's not just grass like here.

Do you find a lot of glass?

All kinds. I have a bowl full of it at home.

Maybe I can come see it sometime.

My ten-year-old brain didn't miss the brotherly tone in his voice. I turned and went back to my towel and told Bailey I was going home and I gathered up all my stuff and started walking up the road toward home, remarking that I was dumb in the first place to go hang out at the lake when the ocean is that much cooler and not more than a short walk the other way. A horn blared behind me and I nearly jumped out of my skin. I turned to look and it was Cole again, hanging out the window of Caleb's car, Caleb who was sixteen and could drive and didn't want to be fetching children from the lake, only doing so because his parents said he had to.

Want a ride, Bridge?

No, I'm fine.

Get in, we'll take you up the hill.

Okay.

Cole was shirtless, leather cord around his neck, brown Jim Morrison curls on his shoulders, dry shorts on with his clean t-shirt and a towel on the bench seat between the boys. He scooped everything up and threw it behind the seat and jumped out so I could get in and sit between them. He was always nice to me.

What's wrong?

Nothing, I just don't fit in. I don't care what the girls are doing and the boys don't want me around.

That will change.

When?

About four or five years from now. Everything will start to change. You'll see. You'll wish for these days, when things were uncomplicated.