New at the Korner Keg

She is efficient and strong behind the bar.

Last night she was a customer, got drunk

and got hired.  Apparently, she's pretty funny

when she's drunk.

She tells my friend, over the whoosh of glasses

being washed, that she got fired

from Kohls.  She was selling cosmetics and

well

who knows why they let her go.  "Funny, I thought

that was one thing I was actually good at."

She glances to her left...

"Wake up, Robbie, we can't have you sleepin' at the bar"

and the old gent ruefully rubs his eyes to comply.

She draws three beers in about ten seconds, places them in front

of the right customers, and makes change.  "I never tended bar before"

she laughs, as she turns back to us.

I know better than to ask for white wine.  Bourbon's what I drink,

anyway, And when she places it in front of me I want to say,

I'd be proud if you were my daughter.

You are good at landing on your feet.

Untitled

There is a moment, in canoeing...

Must be extreme canoeing, because it's not

anything I have ever experienced or

I''d be all done canoeing...

It's called a "horizon drop"

meaning, all of a sudden, you can't--

you just cant see the river, it has

dropped away from you, and until

you get to the edge of that drop, you

don't know how far you might fall.

The dilemma is: do you get out and walk along the bank

safe and dry, and check out that drop before you get there?

Or do you trust the map, the guidebook, the guy you met

around the campfire last night, that this is just part of the fun...

you might break a bone, but you won't die,

and you will have such a story at tomorrow night's campfire.

Raising children is one long string of horizon drops, that's

what I think.  Only it's not you that might be trapped at the bottom of the falls

slowly drowning in the furious bubbles...

It's not you who might be sailing, singing, over the rapids...

It's that little beast who has made every day a day of worry

interrupted by moments of creation-worthy joy.

And who are you to say, "portage, you must porTAGE" or

hell, go for it, you only live once...either could be such bad advice.

You are no better than that drunken camper you toasted the stars with last night

Except, you are all bound up with love, and so

here you go, or don't go.

Already, you have been so brave.