Rock Collections and Writing Superstitions.

When I was 12, I was on a swim team. Actually I was on a few of them. It was my big extracurricular activity. One November afternoon, after my mom dropped me off at the high school where we practiced, I decided it was time to take a break. Not exactly one of my better ideas. It was a chilly gray day, and there was no place to go to get away from the icy drizzle.
I stayed outside and watched through the chlorine-stained window while my team did their laps. At some point, I picked up a round stone and began scraping it against a cement wall. I was surprised that it was the rock that got marked up, not the building.
I never went inside. I never told anyone what I did. (so it's true confession time here on my blog..um sorry Mom). There was something important to me about that day. Before I got picked up from 'practice', I shoved the rock in my pocket. It was the first in my collection.
Here's my rock collection now. It's filled with memories. The ones with carved words on them ("Create." "Imagine" "Laugh" etc) are gifts from friends and family. The others I found on special days.
And that big sparkly "hope".. that came from my friend, Ann.
I call them my writing rocks. They stay near my desk. Before I send a manuscript out into the world, I print out the first page, and place it on top of the rocks and underneath the word 'hope'. It spends the night there. Yeah I know. It's a silly superstition. But I feel like all those memories and all those people have been my rocks throughout the years (I'm sorry. I couldn't resist the bad pun) and provide a foundation for all my stories. And it never hurts to have a little hope.

One Small Step for Man, One Giant Leap for Mankind

When I stood outside on that summer night and looked up at the moon, I was disappointed. Somehow, I expected to see Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin (and yes, I thought they'd be waving). Even if they weren't in view, I was certain I'd be able to spot the American flag. After all, it was the only red, white and blue thing up there.
Just so you don't think I was the densest eight-year-old living in the town of Massapequa Park in 1969, I want you to know that I didn't expect to see it with the naked eye. I had binoculars.
I didn't really have to look up at the sky. I only had to look to earth to see what happened. Parents and teachers spoke to us about living on Mars and beyond. We played with space-themed toys, watched the Jetsons, and drank Tang, "like the astronauts". Even though the sixties were turbulent times, one thing was clear: Our futures would be ones with unlimited potential, where we would explore the unknown.
To celebrate the anniversary of that first step, here's a quote from astronaut Eugene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon:
“The spirit of Apollo is not so much what we did but how and why we did it. Particularly in the period of time we did it, when the country was torn by civil strife, campus unrest, the start of an unpopular war and the president of the United States said after a grand total of 15 minutes of space flight that we’re going to go to the moon. He was asking us to do the impossible. He was asking us to do what most people at the time did not think could be done. That’s the spirit that we have to relay to younger generations. You never know how successful you can be or how good you can be unless you try.”
For the sake of the eight-year-old who tonight looks up at the moon, I hope we go back.