shadow of worlds

At Cafe Loka with my knitting and mug of jasmine green tea my yarn was briefly infused with a rainbow smudge. Color ovoids suddenly appeared on the floor and tables as light briefly shown precisely through the small glass prism hanging in a window. I knitted with air-rainbow yarn until the sun changed position and I was left with my pretty but now dull project. At home, I saw on my kitchen table, the bottle of olive oil I'd forgotten to put away. The sun was working magic on that ordinary object. Thinking I'd better pay attention (maybe I was tuning into messages from the 11th dimension) I watched as the sun climbed higher and made its way around to the west. No messages were forthcoming - just everyday shadows.

It seems my life is made up of all sorts of shadows these days. Today I've been browsing through a huge plastic storage box of old photographs looking for pictures of the friend who passed away seven weeks ago. First let me state that I've been taking pictures since I was nine years old when I convinced my father to buy me a Brownie Hawkeye camera - so there are a lot of pictures! I was the only kid in the 4th grade at P.S. 97 to tote her camera on field trips. Still have that b&w picture of our teacher Miss Bopp at the Bronx Zoo. White gloves, small felt hat, sturdy handbag on wrist. I've carried one camera or another with me ever since.
      Today's photo search is the first stage in preparing for the trip I'm taking back east in a couple of weeks. There I will meet up with a group of women I haven't seen in many years but my friend stayed in contact with long after we'd both moved to Taos. For a time in the 1970s we all lived in a small Connecticut town near the water. A river ran alongside. The wild and gray Atlantic Ocean lay just beyond the strip of land we could see from our beach that was (and still is) Long Island. We were young mothers with husbands and children. On most summer days we gathered our sand chairs in a circle in the sun as our dozen children scampered around and did whatever children do at beaches. We talked about jobs, dreams, gripes, hairdos, tans, books, affairs (we were having or wanted to have), husbands. Before Gayle died she made me promise that I'd go back and gather with them for her. They still live there.
     Much has changed since those days. Our children are middle aged. There have been divorces, remarriages, illnesses, deaths, important anniversaries. Grandchildren. Widowhood. One of us is going to be a great grandmother. There were five women, now there are four. Pictures create echoes. Shadows of times lived...wasn't it only yesterday? There was that emerald green bathing suit that looked so great with a deep tan. The day my kid passed the swimming test so she could swim out to the float unsupervised. Fourth of July when we, who considered ourselves rather sophisticated, felt an unaccustomed excitement all day until the night when we brought down to the beach, brie and good wine, hot dogs and cookies. 

   We said goodbye
at Bailey Beach's pavilion
   In summer rain