by Mary Ellen Johnson
My life stretches on its long course as the elongated circles are stretched on a carpet design.
Youth
A Florida girl digs her unmanicured toes in the dribbling, wet sand on the crowded, living, breathing, undulating coquina-filled world, accompanied by her 5 younger siblings, but in her own world, the world of nature. The girl is me and I am a part of my family but born to be a reflective, bookish person yearning to be alone and independent. Friendships are deep – I am not the life of the party yet – and my best friends are only 2 girls who share my love of learning. We are different but together in spirit.
My energetic, hardworking mother likes to walk the beach near sunset. I walk with her, and dream and watch the fluffy bits of playful clouds in the azure skies. Life can be dreamy in this touristy, happy weather – rain is scarce but welcome in the drippy hot summers of St. Petersburg.
Adolescence
Ah! The beauty of life in Florida! My bicycle, or steed named Silver, and buses take me away, far away to be myself, still lost in reading about others’ explorations and idyllic lives yet still fascinated by horses that can speed me away from our family troubles and drama. I excel away from home in the classrooms of learning.
Adult
Thriving away from home in senior college, I am amazed by the wonder of falling in love, still relying on my attainment of life goals – self-sufficiency, academic success, finding my place in the world of teaching, travel, and the rhythm of married life without children, but then becoming a mother and losing the special adult she had become, losing love and gaining new love and independence, and helping my granddaughter grow into her own self.
Life cycles on as new lives begin where old lives end.