Coffee and Pancakes

I woke up smelling coffee and pancakes and warmth. For the briefest moment, I was ten and my dad was in the kitchen making his usual Sunday breakfast, listening to Car Talk. My parents were still married and my sister was one of the best gymnasts in town, her medals all lined up on her shelves. Carson city was the capitol of America and the center of the universe. I wrote short stories about horses and drew pictures of flowers and felt jealous of everyone because everyone could do something better than me. The walls of my room were papered with roses that matched my bedspread and my trashcan and I was looking forward to wearing makeup. My fingers were not yet long enough for Fur Elise and still fumbled over Mary Had a Little Lamb. I spent hours wandering the field across the street, pretending that I was a giant and the little weeds were trees and I was destroying a forest as I walked. Growing pains sometimes made it hard to destroy the forests. I didn't wear glasses or contacts and didn't know how trees looked from a distance, with their leaves separated by shadows and depth instead of being one big blob of green. I couldn't recognize people's faces until they were right in front of me, but I could impress my dad by finding the tiny United States of America written in Franklin's collar on the hundred dollar bill. Other than the grandpa I barely knew, no one close to me had died. My grandma still made her famous pumpkin pie with us for Thanksgiving and my Aunt Joanne was roaming her Christmas tree farm in Portland and putting thistle theed out for her bird friends. My friends and my future friends were all healthy children, just like me. Ozzie and his memories were non-existent and Taco and Kurbsy were kittens who liked to run across the piano and had no idea how long they'd live nor how suddenly and sadly they'd leave. My parents' friends told me I'd grow up to be a heart-breaker and I didn't like that because it sounded mean and made me blush, but I kinda liked it because it made me think I'd turn out to be something special. The pancakes and coffee faded and I opened my eyes to my darkened bedroom and thought about how 32 years is a lot of years. And there are still quite a few to go.