The ocean waves TEMPT me, with their MILKY white foam, their mottled blues and greens. My head pounds, my bones ache, my soul is weary. I have been pulled in too many directions, overwhelmed by urgency and disasters everywhere. Truly these are the siren songs of the 21st century driving me to MANIC, frantic activity. I look out, as if at a point in infinity. Let me take just one step — no, two, ten, twenty, a thousand — along the beach. Let the MAGIC, the healing properties of salt, sand, water release me. I yield to the paradox: the grounding provided by waves in perpetual motion and the soft shifting sands.

Georg’ann

We were sitting by the fire in a Mexican restaurant when my dad began to regale us with stories. He’s beyond BROKE, took the last of his STASH to buy a clean shirt at the thrift store for this dinner out with his daughters. We’re supposed to be discussing the housing situation, it’s an 18 month waitlist just to get on a waitlist. He’d expressed fear at how the streets had changed in the last 10 years and he didn’t think he was up to living back in the bushes at Pony Park. At 76 he was vulnerable, afraid. He let it show for a few brief minutes. Then ordered another Tecate and began to tell a childhood tale that involved a snake, a fire, and an ANVIL. It was hard to follow.

I think the snake slithered out from behind the FACIA in the basement where the furnace needed stoking. Very long story short, my dad got burned and the snake didn’t survive.

This was the Maritano storytelling MAGIC in action. I recorded it surreptitiously on my iPhone, another sliver of family lore captured around a dinner table.

Heather