11:23 – 11:32

When I was little, I told people that I was going to study literature and that I was going to be a writer. I was sure of this -- as sure as finding my own way home from school when one or both of my parents forgot me there. The way California took me down until I turned left into a hill where I would run at full speed past the massive barking dogs in the yard with the fence that never felt high enough. I wrote about it in my journal just after the notes I'd made about the book Helter Skelter when I was in grade six. Violence and serial killers analyzed and digested followed by sketchy notes from the mouth of a kid about the way her life could unfold if she might just let it. I always planned on living in the Pacific Northwest -- always near the ocean. And I thought that I'd marry the man who lived next to us -- just to the right of the driveway -- Mr. Hotaru -- who always whispered stories to me in Japanese in a way that made me understand -- that made me believe, as a child, that he spoke some secret sacred language only reserved for us and for those tales. But who died at the age of 72 when I was still only in high school. When I had already forgotten the way of the word. Maybe sometimes the choices we make leaves life little room not to violate the things we most desire -- that we thought we wanted to wish for. I'm not where I thought i was going. But, there's no room for forgetting, anymore.