get behind me

I don’t know when I discovered it was all right not to act grown-up all the time. Certainly after college, after I’d already given up my red corduroy overalls. It’s all right to wear pigtails. It’s all right to ride a bike with a basket. It’s all right to tuck a novel inside. It’s all right to believe in magic.

I believe most of the time.

Today is one of those days.

What’s magic about right now?

Waking up to rain on the banana tree leaves.

Waking up to a new time.

There’s a sweet, syrup smell in the air in New York, but I swear, we smelled it here in San Francisco when I cooked wild mushroom soup.

There are white pumpkins now and purple-green.

At the library, I check out Alice Hoffman’s The River King and two installments of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and say The Highwayman in my head on my way home from the park where a couple and their baby dress as three blind mice in white overalls, white hats, white ears, black noses and glasses.

A few days ago, on the 101, I saw a black Lincoln town car. The windows were black. The California license plates said: SATAN. I licked my lips. I passed him.

I have one chapter left to revise in my novel. I have ideas. I have time. I have this man. I have:

"One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize to-night,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;
Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight,
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way."