The day you were born.

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Playing Roy Rogers and Dale Evans we gallop around until a soft, "whoaaa" in late afternoon when I have friends. We watch for Trigger and Buttermilk. Thinking who will we ride? That palomino is mine, we agree, or I say so, the longer blond hair must be Dale, it is understood.

Now the memory is gray like that descending summer evening. I could trot and lope like no tomorrow, hoping for no tomorrow, just now, this now. Up that driveway I go to untack, so I throw my leg over my horse and jump down and brush and feed, horse first, child second, if the fantasy lasts that long.

Reading took up lots of that time that loomed, summer, worrying, but reading could make it all go away in an adventure longed for. And coloring, too. Coloring and coloring and making construction paper things. Cut and glue and cut and cut, how I love cutting, still today.

But the most filling of all was playing. Playing house, playing school, playing library by crayoning someone's name on the inside cover, then stacking books in an order as we go. Playing work, even though we didn't know what went on in that grandfather's brick building where he went most days in a checked suit coat and tie, hair slicked, face smooth. So we answered phones and scribbled a message and promised to let him know.

Playing 45's. Her 45's of old crooners. Piling the shiny black grooved plates on that cylinder to drop and play one after the other. I almost could like them, but then the abrupt fear. But reading the center label with a hole punched in, could make it all go away. Reading was really good for that.

The day you were born was summer. I was the mother and you were the baby and the other kids were the older ones. I would wrap you up warm and close and tell you what to do and the older ones would play and play while I kept my eye out and bounced you up and down with an idea. "How about you guys go to the store!" while I would hold you and wait. Then we forgot and ran around outside in the sun.

Growing up wasn't all it had been touted. Angular legs too long, those skinny hands were done playing horse or house, it was gone for good. Confused in middle school, downright scared of algebra and history in high school until that last year. That's when I gave up and did what I could. That's when an artist came to school to teach. A world of wonder opened up, maybe even college, where reading and drawing would give back hope.

But no matter that repeating Spanish pressed me down, no matter English II writing lifted me up, it was done. Those days were done. Grown up, I studied, and I drew and painted and raged and craved and drove recklessly with reckless friends not interested in playing or coloring and I couldn't fix that.

My dream of cowboys and cowgirls seemed distant in that valley, maybe over that canyon, maybe later in the day, when the sun seemed to lower in apricot orange and gray. Maybe that day was ahead. Roy and Dale and coloring and playing house and playing work and library. More books, more darkening afternoons would get me there. Someone would ride up to play. Soon.

They had to.
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