It's not nighttime yet, but it's dark outside my window. We haven't had any significant rain here in So Ill for well over a month. The trees are finally moving in the wind. They'd been standing still so long, I was wondering if they'd forgotten how. It's a good thunderstorm--a summer thunderstorm. Nothing like the violent things that plague us in the early spring.

I threw a shower today for a lovely young woman from church. Between motorcycle class, work, and general mom stuff, I had little time during the week to prepare, and spent the last two days cleaning and cooking like a madwoman. I had hoped against hope to hold the party out on the deck we built last fall. Sadly, the freaky-warm weather ensured that we were stuck inside, in the air conditioning.

One of the guests, Nelle, told a brief story that I wanted to share with you. She has a grandson who's not quite six years old. I met him just a couple of weeks after he was born. He's a very quiet, reserved little boy, and doesn't speak often when he's around adults. But he's very close to Nelle. She told us that he came over to her house the other day, and they went for a walk. "Look, Nana," he said. "Look at my birds. They followed me here from my house."

What a wonderful concept. I love how those simple words fully describe his world view. Is there any thought more magical than thinking that the birds we love to see every day might follow us to our Nana's house? That they want to be with us, as though they were our close friends or even a part of us?

Nelle said it sounded like a children's book. It does, doesn't it? The writer in me wanted to grab that image and put dibs on it and turn it into a story immediately. If you've hung around writers, you know they do that sort of thing. Ideas and images aren't so much a currency as they are a kind of starter yeast. They simmer and bubble and grow, changing into something far different in shape from the original--but still recognizable. I just loved this story and image so much that I couldn't wait for it to ferment. It needed to get out there and grow on its own.

I'm taking a break from Facebook and Twitter for a while. I'll try to blog a bit more. It was a lot of fun to share my motorcycle week with you. But I can't promise the next few weeks will be as...hm, what's the word I want? Oh, yeah. Dangerous.

Hope you have a lovely week.

Above: the unused deck.