3 AM Thoughts

Last night - or was it early this morning? - while I

was feeding The Cheeks, my mind went off time traveling;

I made a note of some of its destinations because I thought

 those 3 am thoughts would make a good blog post.

What prompts our mind to dig back into its archives?

A thought? An image? A conversation?

I tried to figure that out last night when my mind

led me back to late high school and a few days 

spent in Kennett Square kissing boys and crashing cars.

From there, I journeyed to the basement of a raised 

ranch where I bumped into an R.E.M. t-shirt worn for

30 days straight (not by me) before moving on to

one of the coolest apartments I've ever been in.

I got drunk for the first time in that apartment, 

at a small, intimate gathering thrown by an underage kid 

whose absentee mother owned the place. 

While The Cheeks finished up her bottle, I wondered about 

that kid and what he's up to now. He was a good friend 

for a short while: we wrote letters to each other, shared music 

and bottles of Mad Dog 20/20 at back yard parties (we were

 both partial to orange, I do recall). He was funny but I don't 

think his life was much fun: he lived in State College but

 his mom's place was in Milton. Recognizing that all these years

later made me sad and as I rocked my babe to sleep, 

I wondered what separates a mom from her child?

It's crazy how one's mind can be cloudy yet clear: during

that late night feeding, I barely kept a steady hand (thus 

spilling formula down my baby's neck) yet the names of 

everyone I encountered during my time traveling were 

crystal, even if the faces were obscured by years.