River Mortenson
Beginning Dreamweaver
formorts@sonic.net

Melinda
when she was five

Melinda and Benedicta

Seeking hide and seak places, she puts her friend behind her, blinds her eyes, and then begins to aimlessly walk.

Peaking through the soft enclosure of her web of fingers, she finds with feigned surprise the little girl she's hidden.

The Wishing Party

“Are you at the wishing party?” I ask my daughter while she's playing. Melinda wrinkles her young brow:“You are at the wishing party, I'm not. I'm getting ready for the wishing party.” She wears the brightest red with small white pokadots, her unbrushed hair in knots.

When she's fishing she wrinkles her forehead the same way. She concentrates hard on her pole, her young muscles dancing as the fishing line often becomes tangled under the surface of the lake. She doesn't give up easily.

But she's still in need of the gentle hands of her two parents to untangle the knots, to help catch the fish, “the whale or the shark”, to be already at the wishing party where ever she wishes it to be.