Summer's (Almost) Here, and the Time is Right...

...for racing in the streets.

Ok -- I'm a suburban mom with an SUV. I don't really do much racing in the streets. I left the Johnstown com-pan-y years ago. I don't even have a screen door to slam. But I have been known to relive the glory days. And today -- today I just can't seem to stop the lyric, "There's a sadness in her pretty face -- a sadness all her own..." from running all around in my brain. 

So many of the women I love are facing a sadness all their own. They can hide 'neath the covers and study their pain, but, ultimately they are still -- well -- lonely for words that ain't been spoken.  

I feel like the lyric-speak needs to stop -- but honestly, all morning my brain has been playing snippets of Springsteen songs that meld into each other seamlessly. It sounds great, if only in my mind. But it is a melancholy soundtrack for such a beautiful day. 

I can't tell you the stories that are hurting my friends, because they are theirs. The same as and different from the stories that might be hurting you and the stories that are hurting me. A sadness all their own. I can't tell you the stories that are hurting me because -- like most painful stories -- although the sadness may be all my own, the story is not only mine.

I guess I would just ask -- for compassion. Because we don't know each others trials. We can sympathize -- we can empathize with the parts that feel familiar -- but we can never actually know. That strikes me simultaneously as very sad and very wonderful. We are all so unique in our joys and triumphs as well as in our trials. 

I know I have fallen into the trap of thinking that my problems are worse than anyone else's. You think YOU have it bad...  Try living MY life for JUST ONE DAY and then we'll talk... I would be willing to bet a couple hard earned nickels that you've entertained the same notion, at least once or twice.

We can't really walk a mile in someone else's moccasins.

But I guess we (I) can acknowledge that ours (mine) isn't the only road that's rocky and treacherous and potentially inhabited by rodents of unusual size.

Maybe, though, as we intersect each other's roads, we can remind each other to roll down the windows and let the wind blow back our hair. Maybe instead of judging each other, we can help each other out when it feels hard to move on. 'Cause tramps like us, aw, you know what tramps like us were born to do.

Peace.