Queen of the World

Top of the World
Originally uploaded by r_ockle

When we were kids, my sisters and cousins and I spent a lot of time on and around this bench in my grandparents' backyard. We'd chase rabbits and wiffle balls into the cornfield. We'd sit up there and practice our heckling. Sometimes we'd just hang out there, watching the alfalfa and the grass grow, eating tomatoes fresh off the vine, listening to the gladiolas and the dahlias getting taller every day.

A lot of my grandparents' garden is gone now, because it's too much to take care of, and sooner than later the cornfield is going to be plowed under and paved over and turned into a "light industrial warehouse complex," and many of my childhood memories are going to be turned into wistful teary treatises on open space and green areas and get the hell off my lawn you damn kids!

But for now, I have this picture of my daughter, and that is enough.