#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream

After waking, before walking, I sat down on my couch with my notebook to write and looked out the window into the yard and saw a small dark blob in the middle of the bright grass. It’s June, so I guessed right: a snapper laying eggs. I went to the yard for a closer look, making sure Charlie didn’t slip out with me. Not that he would hurt the turtle, but he would disturb her with some noisy, persistent barking. In June the turtles come from the river to bury eggs that will hatch in September. In June I was married. My daughter is considering wearing her own new version of my wedding dress for her wedding. Today we went to meet the seamstress. Both daughters and I met in her basement studio with the dress we unpacked a month ago from its cardboard box, sealed for three decades so she could try it on. The question: can she make it her own and be happy with it? She has discarded the lacy top that goes over the satin slip. She wants a sexier dress than mine. I try to keep an open mind. It must be hers. Her sister shares some very good ideas with Janee, who will do the alterations. Janee has quite a few great ideas too. By the end of our time together, we’re all very pleased and we decide to proceed, to entrust the dress, the design, the alterations to Janee. But first, I must take the dress home and wash it. Janee has said she’s confident we can do it with the washing machine, having examined the fabric. So, if all goes well with the washing, our next appointment with Janee is next week to deliver the bride to be to be measured and the dress to be transformed. Then, the youngest has a show tonight with her playback theatre troupe, True Story Theater in Arlington, so I drive there with my husband. And I bring my story of the transformation of the dress, and I tell it, and it’s played back. And she leaves tomorrow for Costa Rica and at 4 am I will wake and drive her. Tonight, if the turtles eggs are fortunate, no predator will smell out their freshly dug nest. I hope the eggs are left in peace fo the hatchlings to crack open their shells and dig their way out, and follow their instincts to the river of life.