between the edges...

I have the happy fate of living between the frantic Atlantic and its shadow, the deeply mysterious, gooey, smelly marsh.  I have the sad fate of living in the darkness between the loss of one parent and the sure loss of another.  To this not-fancied child, it's a game-changing loss.  Last night, I dreamt of my father's death.  This time, he was carried to his final rest in a red hearse with a skirt around it making a right turn onto some street I've never seen.  When life throws the gut-wrenching stuff at one, it seems it also throws a life vest.  Because now, of course, all I can think about is that ridiculous red hearse with the red bed-skirt wrapped around its haunches.  I'm crying. I'm laughing. I'm thinking of Faulkner.  The past is masquerading as present in the middle latitudes of the southland where the air is leaden and wet and no one ever dies, and parallel universes insert themselves whenever and wherever they see fit.  Here, between the edges of happy and sad...

West end of Folly looking to Kiawah