Skip to main content

Sunscreen Fixin'


Jules squirted some sunscreen onto her palms before massaging it into her shoulders and the hard to reach blades of her back.  As the thick, white lotion spread, its scent drifted through the salty ocean air and I recognized it immediately.  Bonne Bell cotton candy lip balm.  I wore it religiously throughout seventh grade, convinced that icy pink was a good look for me.  It was the kind of silvery shade that older, high school girls were wearing.  I had a sparkly pink mini-skirt to match—one that received loads of compliments.  I do not miss the goopy feeling of synthetic gloss smacked across my lips, but the smell, oh God is it delicious!  It’s sinfully sweet, even better than real cotton candy, with an aftertaste of some inscrutable, tingling mint.  After all this time, more than a decade, the scent still moves me and I have to control the urge to reach over and smear Jules’ Ocean Potion’s SPF 30 all over my lips, just for old time’s sake.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Preferrential Option for God As 'She'

The Scandalous Feminine Three weeks ago I wrote a piece for the Catholic blog “God In All Things.” It’s a website devoted to the spiritual practices of St. Ignatius of Loyola, featuring writing on prayer, discernment, imagination, and a basic willingness to see God in, well, all things. The topic of my piece was “Spiritual Déjà vu,” an expression I coined to describe the heightened sense of God’s presence when we encounter deep truths.  The essay was a total of 1,148 words in length, but there was only one word that evoked controversy: She . It was used only once, in the first sentence: “I used to be quite frustrated that God never spoke directly to me the way She spoke to the Hebrew prophets.” And yet, it provoked a deluge of comments ranging from the dismissive, “ Why is God…”she”? I do not understand that? I’m reluctant to even read past that” to the recommendation that I, “ review the sins of Heresy, Apostasy and Schism.”   Basically the comments section reads...
1 comment
Read more

Something for my friends...


 The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing. It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love,
for your dream,
for the adventure of being alive. It doesn’t interest me
what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain. I want to know
if you can sit with pain,
mine or your own,
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it. I want to know
if you can be with joy,
mine or your own,
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful,
to be realistic,
to remember the limitations
of being human. It doesn’t interest me
if the story you are telling me
is t...
3 comments
Read more

The First Negotiation

The morning light licks the corners of my face, repeatedly, until I consent to opening my eyes. She makes her gradual way across the bed, nudging her most promising sign of hope unto the tossled ivory. The sun is far more gentle than any alarm clock I’ve ever fought, though no less insistent. In such radiant self-giving, how many times can I roll over? So we strike a compromise: I will flip my pillow and “rest” my head, but promise to keep my eyes a flutter, little windows parted slightly for the streams of her still light. Sometimes I up the bargain, telling her that there is really no better way to receive her glory, no greater praise of her warmth, than to surrender consciousness upon her lap, just a little. She will often reply by shedding new light upon the floor, warming a most suggestive path out into the kitchen. My stomach grumbles. Are you sure you don’t want to try freezing time again? I ask. You, me and the sheets, forever curled in our secret morning splendor...
5 comments
Read more