Sunrise.

Here comes the light from behind the trees.

Her comes Daisy....

...down the dog trail from her house to ours....

hey , mom...

ready to spend the day with us. A shared dog.

At night in downtown, when the shops are closed, the last of the restaurants has emptied out and the pinball bar is finishing up that final round; I like to walk through town. I move quietly and slowly in and out of the shop doorways, pausing to look into windows and up in the trees at sleeping song birds. Softly, as if my feet were padded, I walk and watch. I see what I miss in the broad daylight. Absent of people and cars, noise and light, I am serene and enchanted moving as if a ghost through the dark, deserted streets. I have peace.

Walking the beach today at Fort Flagler, I took a candid photo of myself. I am not big on taking many pictures of myself because the image on the camera is not the one I keep in my head. In the picture I downloaded this evening, I realized that except for the hair color, I look exactly like my mother. It is not want I want to see. Nothing was wrong with my mother, nothing at all. I am looking at a 56 year old woman in the picture anyway so perfection belongs not in my camera image but perhaps in Hollywood where Sharon Stone looks like a 30 year old screen goddess. I just feel myself melding into my mom, losing my identity as the more I resemble her. I know I am not her. So much is different about me, my life and my personality but I am wrestling with this issue. I admired my mother but never thought I would look like her. What a silly self centered thing to say! I can hear those words from her now.

I will not post the picture. It is hard not to just delete the dang thing. It was fun at the beach on a walk. Relaxing, centering. I am going to be doing some more soul searching on this mother issue. I wonder if my sons will think along these lines although I doubt it. I really do doubt it.