Small dreams too big

One beautiful thing I experienced today:

The cashier at Target, who had to be some kind of clairvoyant. As she rang my items, she said, "You have two kids, yes?" Since I was flying solo just then, I stared at her in surprise. "Yes, how did you know?" She gestured vaguely to my items, as though they had clued her in. I had purchased a package of empty Easter eggs and some candy.

A few minutes later, she was handing me $10 cash back. As she pressed the bill into my palm, she said, "You aren't going to cook; you're going to buy some food with this." Again with the shock, because I had gotten the $10 so I could buy a hot dog from the cafe.

I wanted to clutch her hands and beg, "Tell me, how does it all end?" But I decided it was better not to know.

Other:

We took the girls for a walk today and navigated the rocks and mud to traipse in the creek bed. Where the dirt was dry, the ground was cracked and dusty; closer to the water, the ground was thick and sticky. Grasshoppers flew all around us; little aphids scattered. Tadpoles and minnows mingled near the shore of the creek and little frogs jumped everywhere. Baby snakes slithered from the shore and cut fluid, winding lines through the water.

I lumbered awkwardly to the ground, walking boot thrust in front of me, already caked with mud. I had planned to look for "shark" teeth, those tiny little fish teeth that hide in the sandy ground near creeks just like this one. I pulled a rock from the ground for digging, and as the dry dirt flaked in clumps where the rock was, a smell wafted up to me, a low, sweet smell of decay, of dirt, of stagnant water, and for that second I was nine-years-old again, alive with the possibility of finding something amazing there in the dirt, maybe a petrified jaw with many teeth on it, maybe a tooth as big as the bed we were standing on.

Listening: Samantha Crain and the Midnight Shivers, "Rising Sun"