21

A new day. A new life continues.

I was standing by the cot I sleep in, outside of the van/panel truck when Xena came from across the dirt road at the campground.

"Come on Kahuna," she said as she crossed to our camping spot. "We need to part the horse's mane and repulse those monkeys!"

"Hi," I said.  I'd been out running with the early morning, out in the grey that I liked to run in every morning.  I thought that Xena was still in the van in her bed.  She'd pretty much made the back on the van into her own space, not that I was excluded from it but I stayed away out of some need to give her some space of her own.  I thought that most women needed that, I guess anyway.

"Come, we've already started and you're late."

I drank the last of the bottled water.  "Started?"

"Yeah, those monkeys are waiting," she answered.

I wasn't sure what she was talking about but I knew that I'd find out soon enough.  She pulled my arm and I complacently followed.  She led me back across the road and to a little clearing where some tents and campers were set up.  There I saw a small group of people, maybe a dozen or so moving together in structured way.  Ah!  I've seen this in movies.

"Tai chi," Xena said as we lined up on the last row of the group.

There was a fairly young woman in the front who was talking as everyone moved.  I saw that most of us were watching her and tried to imitate her moves.  Actually, there were a couple of teenage girls ahead of us and it was interesting watching them move.  A few of the people up in the front line were moving like the leader, somewhat at least.   I was always a step behind the others, including Xena, who seemed to almost know what was going on.  That wasn't surprising since I've learned to expect that she was incredibly smart and knew at least a little about everything. 

This was the day after the 4th and the air smelled of gunpowder, at least I called in gunpowder, whatever it was that made the fireworks explode.  We were told when to breathe and I smelled the powder more from the effort to breathe in long and slow and then do the same with my exhale.

Last night we'd sat with some of the other families, for that's what I thought of Xena and myself, family, and watched the fireworks explode around the lake.  Evidently we had stumbled upon a large campground outside a pretty good size town in Missouri and the 4th of July was a big deal every year at this campground.  Xena had introduced herself to all the surrounding camping families and we'd been invited to eat with more than one family and had mixed freely with a half dozen campsites.

I'd started a new painting over the weekend but barely had time to paint.  We'd joined a company-wide celebration down the lake a ways.  Xena fit right in with the families and I'd tagged along.  We ran races, pulled ropes, had water balloon fights and generally did all the things company picnic people did on the 4th.

By the time evening came we ate with everyone else.  There had to be more than 50 people just in that one celebration.  There were many other celebrations going on all day around and on the lake.  Xena even tried water skiing.  She looked like she'd skied before but I knew that she hadn't.  I've found that she looked good doing just about everything.  Including Tai chi now.

So, I didn't get a lot of painting done yesterday.  And today was starting out a little slow also. 

I'd done my 45 minutes running around the lake and now about an hour repulsing monkeys and waving my hands like clouds.  I don't think my clouds were very good since I could see Xena smiling to herself when I caught her glancing towards my clouds.  She looked remarkably like the leader lady while I stumbled over my own feet and hit the ground when I tried to do a snake creeps down.  Afterwards Xena crowded around the leader with some of the others.  I walked back to camp.  My knees ached.