I came home from a busy day working as an RN, and was turning on the oven to preheat even as I was putting away my nursing bag and taking off my shoes.

I grabbed the first thing a saw – a bunch of quickly deteriorating bananas. I methodically made 2 loaves of banana bread.

My husbands said we’ve got to eat dinner, why are you doing this now?

At the moment, I honestly didn’t have an answer that made sense. I said the bananas were overripe.

They’d be that way for hours. Another day, even.

I needed to comfort myself, though. Even though I knew I wasn’t going to eat but a small test slice, I was preparing this gift of sweet breads for my family and coworkers.

As I took a breath when the loaves went into the oven, I began to tell my husband about the call I had been on right before I got home.

Barb had a heart attack that morning.

In a panic, I had called her son – one of my oldest best friends – as soon as I got the word.

When I as 14, I met Barb – and she was an extra mother in my life for decades now.

Hysterically funny, she and I laughed and laughed over the years with her son.

As I grew into adulthood, she became even more important to me – she became a mentor, someone who gave me advice, and eventually someone to commiserate with about being a grandmother. She has quite literally walked with me from being a teenager to being a grandmother.

My frantic rush to bake yesterday was a coping mechanism.

I needed to make something and share it.

I didn’t realize how badly I was affected by the news until the loaves hit the oven.

As soon as they did, I was sobbing like a baby.

It never crossed my mind that I could lose her. We live on separate coasts and don’t talk as frequently, but I love her fiercely. She’s knit into the fabric of my life like very few people are.

As I smeared the tears over my face and sobbed out the story to my husband, it hit me that I was stress baking.

Banning the ability to go to her, I was baking for others.

As I write this, the report so far has been good.

In the mean time, I added a browned sugar glaze to the top of the loaves at 10pm last night.

I’m still unsettled.

I was on the beach, on one of the most beautiful islands in the Caribbean.

We were there to relax under an umbrella, rising to snorkel, swimming lazily, gliding over rocks, coral, and the occasional sea turtle.

The tide proved to be strong this day. Despite wearing flippers on my feet, my arms and legs could not keep up with the force of the ocean.

Exhausted, I fought my way back to the shore, and flopped back down on my chair.

Not for long. It was hot, and I was restless.

Rising, I walked along the shoreline. Many people were looking for shells, but I spotted a cool green shadow among the pebbles that rolled with the tide.

Sea glass.

I picked it up, amazed to have found it for the first time in the wild.

As I ran my fingers over and over the surface, I was amazed at how smooth it was.

It had started whole.

Formerly trash, it had been smashed into countless small pieces, tumbled and formed by the sea, sand, and rocks.

It had been battered.

It had been cast aside.

Now, in the palm of my hand, it felt warm, soft, and comforting.

The clear, colored shards were now opaque and smooth, hiding the story that got them there.

There were many more outcasts littering the beach that day, and I took a few to remind me of this tropical beach.

The rough tide.

Most of all, to remind me of what happens when we let go and let what happens…happen.

Beauty from glasses.

I’m working on a new book – it’s called “Hand to Dog”, is a humorous, non-fiction account of our relationship to our dogs over the years.

I’ll have sneak preview once I’ve gotten further in – I’m just putting my title out there!

Paul Reubens, known as Pee Wee Herman, died today.

This news came with a rush of sadness for me.

“Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” was his big cinematic hit, and it debuted in 1985. I never saw it in theaters.

I was a young mother of one, and by 1988, my first love was dead, and I was a struggling single mom.

A VHS copy of this movie was in my home, and my young son wore that movie out.

Every day, day after day, my toddler son watched this movie over and over, until both of us had most of the dialogue memorized.

He would act out his favorite scenes, with the timing in sync with the screen.

Every time the “Large Marge” scene came on, he would run and hide, terrified of the truck cab scene he knew was coming.

Over the years we would still answer each other with lines from the movie, or with the signature Pee Wee laugh. Even my dad would get involved in the shenanigans. It is woven in our family memories – happy, silly times.

I can see my son standing in front of the TV, acting, laughing, full of joy.

Today is a bittersweet day.

I think I’m going to see if I can find the movie on a streaming service and watch it today.

I know you are, but what am I. Infinity.

Every summer is hot, but this summer is one for the books.

It’s late afternoon and I let the dogs out – as I open the back porch door, I smell the Weber grill. Grease, propane, and the scent of memories of grilled food flood my nose. The grill is red, and it’s hot in the afternoon sun.

The heat index is triple digits.

The air is like a heavy blanket on my asthmatic lungs, smothering me. The tropical plants are drawn in or wilting, fresh from this morning’s watering. I’ll have to soak them down again if rain doesn’t come.

Big, luscious hibiscus blooms have turned into crisp, papery discs, ready to be pressed in books. “Ode To Summer.”

The dogs skirt the concrete, keeping their pads off a surface you can fry an egg on. No lingering to smell or sniffing around for squirrels.

They rush back into the house, and the a/c, and I thank God for its coolness. The slow, sultry breeze outside does nothing to comfort. It only carries the suffering in air form.

I peer out the window and see the high clouds in the blurry summer sky.

I hate thunderstorms, but we need relief.

Let it rain!

I’ve had a very active imagination for as long as I can remember.

The only girl in a military family, I had a continuous running series of stories that I would return to often, depending on where I was.

In high school this kicked into high gear, and I spent a lot of time writing my stories down. It was an amazing process for me – the stories would unfold even as I wrote them. I wouldn’t know how the story would end, until I finished.

I had a running story I brought to school a few pages at a time, and my friends would read it.

I also wrote a lot of poetry. I had a lot of feelings that were intense, and my observations came out through the poems I struggled with.

I won state and national writing awards. I’ve been published. It came and went so fast.

Fast forward a few decades.

I’m going to see one of my favorite writers tomorrow.

His columns inspire me, and his stories resonate.

When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a Wife, Mama, and a writer.

It’s time to pull that writer off the back burner.

The die was cast long before she realized it had been set in place.

It was love she sought – love, unconditional, dependable, true.

Her innate behavior stemmed from a situation of of her control – but still, she stayed positive, and believed there had to be more.

An unplanned pregnancy shocked her back.

Her teen years sealed her fate for the next two decades. She remained pure, focused on her God and faith, until the relentless negativity and pressure wore her down.

She focused on making life as stable as possible for her child. Working 2-3 jobs, trying to stay on the straight and narrow.

An elopement which looked good on paper, but was disastrous, came next. For six years she took her kids to school, kept house, and lived a lonely life while he strayed and eventually left, after striking a child in anger. Never was one dime of child support given for over a decade – and the deadbeat disappeared, leaving her with all financial responsibilities.

A predator slithered in to a life now dedicated to serving God. A relationship founded on lies, that nearly destroyed them all. She fled for her life…but not before all had been abused or assaulted.

By now she was working two jobs and going to college. She slept on a mattress on the floor and did all to keep her children fed, together, in church, and loved.

She landed in a stable place, working nights to spend the most time with her children. Nightly dinners together at the table, daily declarations of love, as she tried her best to hold it together.

A final marriage, to a good man, during the kids tumultuous teen years. Rejection started then as the children broke off to find their own lives.

She didn’t know that her path was set before she had words.

She did the best she could with what she knew…and from what was never modeled to her.

The plumb line of her faith is wrapped tightly around her now, as she watches her children fade away, taking their children with them.

Her job is done.

She thought it would last much longer.

Heavy

Clouds are draped

Over top of the trees

Sinking, misty,

To the base of each leaf

Moisture built drops

In minuscule specks

Clinging to tops

Of frazzled rose hips

The grey sky leaden

Cloaking over my skin –

A mirrored expression

Of perturbance within

Lara Anderson Stafford

My abdomen

Is an abomination –

Its skin, a war-torn wasteland.

I rotate the wounds like injured crops –

Looking for a fresh field

to impale a life-giving needle.

Fresh territory abounds in verdant thighs –

But I hesitate, avoiding use

Lest I create a new scarred minefield.

The cannula bends, seeping insulin

Where it pools instead of heals –

A new needle must be plunged.

Life-giving gadget won’t make me envious

Of others smooth, scarless flesh –

I long for my own blank slate again.

I am driving slowly down a gravel road. The window is open, and the smell of grasses and firs and dust is commingled in a magic way that triggers a response of peace for me. The promise of hope has brought me here

I get out of my car, parking alongside the rural, empty road. My feet crush gravel as I walk to the small open field leading to the woods. I take a deep breath, feeling my shoulders relax. With my face to the sun, I walk towards a copse of aspen trees that hedge in a much larger forest of old growth pine and fir.

Grasses wave beside be, brushing my legs, occasionally revealing wild flowers swaying for attention as I move purposely forward. Step by step, the elevation rises subtly, and I feel the stress leave my body, even as my heartbeat matches my steady footfall.

Soon I hear the “shhhhhsh” of the aspen grove, leaves quivering and trembling in the mid day sun. The thin, rounded leaves, golden and yellow, shiver a welcoming “shoosh” as I walk into their ranks, feeling smaller, yet not diminished by the rising papery white trunks. My hand stops to run along the tender bark, scars showing in stark, dark relief to the glowing white rise of trees. I look up, then slowly close me eyes as the sun distills light through the quaking leaves, the wind weaving around and through the swaying canopy. The distilled light warms my head, and sieves my troubled thoughts away, swirling the hair on my head, dispelling the troubled thoughts into a playful wind that sends the leaves into a frenzy of rejoicing.

This is not the place for stress, or memory, or pain.

My path now is narrowing into an ancient one, known to travelers and animals since times long past. The swaying rustle of high desert grasses is replaced by a carpet of green grass, darkening even as I approach the old growth.

The path closes in. Young saplings surround me, protected by the guardian Douglas firs and pine trees that rise and rise, and the air become still as I enter this sacred space.

I walk slowly, inhaling great deep breaths of air released by these heavily sapped trees. The canopy is closing in protectively, and the great branches above me almost fully hide the sunlight. They hover over me, shielding me, protecting me, even as the saplings and small patches of moss and ferns clothe their massive roots in soft, tender growth.

I hear the creak of the large ancient ones slowly swaying above me. Small branches crack as unseen forest dwellers jump from limb to limb.

I close me eyes, arms outstretched, and bathe in the forest. The light is dim, the wind corralled in the tree tops, funneled down to an occasional cool breeze brushing me gently, scented with nuances that are centuries old.

The sacred space closes in around me, encircling me in peace and calm, fresh air and the brush of fern fronds.

From here I know exactly the path that takes me into me safest place.

This, for me, is a path I must walk alone.