Vanilla smile with a gorgeous strawberry kiss.

Ate somewhere between 1/16th and 1/8th of mushrooms. Crazy huge mushrooms with luscious blue bruises. Walked with Mike up to Lane and then over to the bike trail by Tuttle Pool and all those baseball fields. Sat on the soil path on the ridge off from the bike path, sitting on roots stacked on the side of the sliding slope, precariously perched above the flooded floor of freckled forests. The Navy ROTC ran by us once and walked by us once, and only the sergeants were able to say hello. The rest walked by trying not to look us in the eye, singing their ridiculous parodies of themselves: Don't let your dingle dangle in the mud.  "We are the Navy, the mighty mighty Navy. Everywhere we go-o people wanna kno-ow who we a-are, so we tell them: we are the Navy, the mighty mighty Navy...."

Lime green, a sickly color orange - I've never seen her like this before.

Watching the flooded grass covered water dappled with pools of absorbing light and ducks and geese gliding over it on both sides of the river, past where the trees marked where the other side of the bank should be. 80 degrees hot in tank top and Goodwill shorts, barefoot against the rocks and cool earth, with the roots as a pillow and Mike as my home. My fingers digging cleanly through the dirt and his beard gently tickling my fleeing tendrils of hair. His fingerprints massaging my cheek. Lips gently stroking each other and watching dappled leaves under the eaves of the towering young trees. Veins arcing in the light and dark above the bark in ripples from the wavering fronds of ridged leaves.

Wandering through the multi-veined paths east, west, north, south. Mike crouched with his baseball hat on backwards and his corduroy shorts and his shirt off tied around a belt loop, his tattoo bright-eyed in the wavering sun. A forboding collection of children's toys next to some delapidated looking apartments, a plush Bob the Builder he would have taken if it wasn't plush, a plastic turtle THIS IS NOT A TOY that we would have taken but didn't want to carry. Walking sandaled past the threatening poison ivy. Passing a group of other people our age with two dogs, and looking them in clouded eye to wonder what they're tripping on.

The shoes off again and feet in contact with Mother Earth, the solid feeling of solid ground, a solid hand against my back to let me know "I wouldn't let you lose me." Climbing flat-footed and delicately, animal-like up the steep hill of the hidden valley filled with ramps in the making and incredible mountain bike fuck-you-up type spills I would make on the course in the middle of the woods, off the street, off Neil, some steps from nowhere, Heaven?, coming into this mystical land of everything. Standing, stopping, holding for a moment, put my arms around you and listen to the wind, hear the branches creak like life-like doors in the mind, feel the eighty-degree-hot sweat smear off me to you with my hand first down then up then around your neck then holding hugging for a moment, a moment that lasted minutes hours days a lifetime. A kiss somewhere in there that reflected God knows what, everything and all me and you this day forever. Broken like a deer in the headlights as three middleschool aged kids ride cautiously down the course. We saw them later on the swings at the recreation center. The fat kid and the girl in the pink shirt.

Step down away, it's time to go. "Liz, there's a tarantula on the road!" "Where? I don't see it." Everything he told me to look at I had to find because the butterfly the tarntuala the baby ducks all in a row, all started out behind something in front of me. A shift of the head and there it is, like the arching snake I saw in the water for him. "Oh shit!" A gigantic spider black on the road, coming up the blacktop towards us, I felt the fear for a minute. What is it? Wander closer and see something a shirt? in the road as a dog stops to sniff it.

Back to the blacktop the peopled path. Bikers riding each direction, two stoners lost with widened pupils drinking it all in, "Am I trippin'?" Yes, Mike, the answer this time is yes. Prof. McCoy riding home? on her bike passing me, "Oh God, my Chem prof saw me stoned!" Keep walking, she wouldn't really know we were tripping, it's all in the mind. We were just enjoying the day. Wandering walking back forever past forever, no water left. Stopping to eat our oranges, so delicious juicy good. We saw the man who looked like he had just smoked crack in the clearing. We must get water soon. So walking back towards campus, towards so many people, so disconcerting, break my trip, not as beautiful as still calm Nature. Walk across the parking lot to Lane the wind blows forcefully against us pushing us back, saying don't go to "civilization", stay back in the woods with the birds and rabbits and snakes and creaking tree limbs reaching for serenity. A poignant time to see my Yoga teacher.

Back eventually to the Commons to sticky sickly sweating hot, more than 80 degrees hot. Wilted lettuce and not good food. Monstrously large pupils, will they know we're fucked up?  Tripping over my sandals and losing Mike again. It took so long to eat my food. Then room relaxation, trip wearing off. Curling up in the chair and making out for God knows how long.

I had the best-laid plans inside of America.

Then walking over to retrieve my bike left at McPherson when I met him for sushi and his bike left at John's the night before. Then sleep. Too much sleep. And skipping all our classes yesterday. Today going to Mike's aunt's house when his mom comes in a couple hours. Seeing his newborn baby cousin. Need to go brush my teeth.

Is there room in your life for one more?