A Dream....

Your smell still graces my fingers as I walk down this amber road. I reach in my purse to pull out the pink cream-pop gloss you so loved to lick off my eager lips last night. The sun catches the fly away hairs on my head and gleams golden in the early morning hours and a smile embraces my face and I can’t help but giggle a little bit. No one is around to catch the giddy motion in my step. It’s all mine to take in as I walk home. Cutting through the park, I look down and notice my blistered heel where the black pump made its mark as we danced. Unnoticed until now, because your eyes were all I could see. The air smells of mothers cooking eggs for their children and lights turn on like dominoes down this corridor of urban homes. Never have my senses been so keen as today, here and now this beautiful October morning.

An energy from my navel to my throat spins me into my building. I don’t remember how I got there, only that I was sitting at the kitchen table, nibbling on a juicy apple my mother had brought me yesterday. I glanced down at the passersby and ate it down to the core, letting its juice play on the skin of my chin. I slipped off my black dress and knew today and the next were going to be different. That somehow, between last week and this very moment, I had finally found myself and had really begun to experience every moment in real time; the cool canvas against my newly shaved thigh as I curl up on the couch to read my latest novel. The rough pages that slip through my fingers as I turn each page. The smell of black ink wafting up my nose as I appreciate all that is written and ever will be. The warm ceramic mug that holds the deep rich warmth I swallow for clarity and how the cream swirls like storm clouds.

It’s been too long since I’ve had something real; something tangible. Under no pretense of infallibility. A real sense that this too, could be lost. Could be gone forever if I don’t treat it carefully. The excitement is almost too much to handle. I lay on my bed, ready to sleep the morning away and the phone rings. It’s him.

I thought we killed it.

Spandex, that is. I saw an individual wearing shiny spandex shorts today. On an open sidewalk, in public, in broad daylight. I actually crinkled my little nose as I watched her walk. Not only was she wearing spandex, but they were turquoise in color accompanied by a navy blue tank and to top off this little tasty morsel of an outfit, hiking boots...with socks and a backpack. The gal thought she had it going on. Not meaning any judgment, but I thought the cosmos did away with shiny Spandex in 1988. I mean, I know this little revival of '80's garb is now considered "retro" but spandex is now under the guise of undergarments that hold unmentionables in or smooths out rolls and the like. Not open to the general society for viewing pleasure. Here is what Wiki says about Spandex.

Spandex or elastane is a synthetic fiber known for its exceptional elasticity. It is stronger and more durable than rubber, its major non-synthetic competitor. It was invented in 1959 by DuPont chemist Joseph Shivers. When first introduced it revolutionized many areas of the clothing industry. Spandex fibers are produced in four different ways including melt extrusion, reaction spinning, solution dry spinning, and solution wet spinning. All of these methods include the initial step of reacting monomers to produce a prepolymer. Once the prepolymer is formed it is reacted further in various ways and drawn out to produce a long fiber. The solution dry spinning method is used to produce over 90% of the world's spandex fibers.

Sounds like a painful process. I can just imagine the evolution of this fake fiber. Since 1959, fashion has taken many turns and comes back on itself like an ugly fungus. I even fell victim to the spandex craze. I wore pink, and I do mean bubblegum pink spandex shorts, outside and jogged in them. Keep in mind I was at the tender age of 16; certainly not in any frame of mind to be held responsible for that. I remember tanning my body with this lotion that practically turned me orange, went jogging later that day and realized, about 10 years later that I must have looked like an idiot. Not to mention that I'm not a skinny girl and only about 1% of the population could get away with wearing spandex without scaring the general public. It produces bulges and dimples in places we'd rather forget and makes you sweat and smell like a strange mixture of plastic and body odor. Not attractive by any means. The days of Xanadu skating is over. We need to move on and keep spandex hidden in the dark recesses of our mind, or in actual sportswear.