dirtpiles

When my (second) ex-wife Monica was a child, her mother and father moved to mid-Missouri to build their own earth contact solar home on a thirty acre plot of land.  Gene and Annie, her parents, had jobs, two small children, and vegetables and animals to tend so the building of the home was a slow process.  In fact, though it has been habitable for close to thirty years, to this day it remains unfinished.  

Monica and her brother James grew up in the midst of this unfinished home. Around them, the land held piles of dirt—left for gardens their parents planned, someday, to create. But to Monica and James, they were the best part: mounds to burrow into, to become animals inside, to build caves and cities from.

I hope this writing is like those dirt piles. Not finished. Not polished. But there for you, still. Not just, or even mostly, for your amusement—but maybe for your invention. I hope you stumble into tunnels, or make some. Find caves. Make planets. The gardens grew over. Their parents separated. The land was sold. But long after all that, Monica and James still played in the dirt piles.

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