Most of my best days in Racine live in memories with friends at a young age.

I remember weekends of soccer games and eating oranges at halftime and camping out in a pal’s backyard annually. I remember endless days of basketball in the neighbor’s driveway and biking around the neighborhood, a true feeling of freedom. I can recount many days of pure joy spent at the beach, downtown, at my homes and local parks.

I acknowledge I had a “good” childhood, which may not be true for everyone. But as a result, I look back on my origins in Racine fondly. There’s a deep well of sweetness there in my memory as I navigate my current days in this town.

Today, that spirit of youthfulness that painted my childhood feels often distant, but if I try hard enough, I like to think it’s graspable and can be brought to the surface again.

I think that’s one of the joys of living where you grew up. Time collapses, the memory is just down the street, and surely childhood was just yesterday. We’re all still friends, aren’t we?

A book of poetry I’ve recently enjoyed and continue to think about often is “Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry” by Ted Kooser and Jim Harrison. The book contains small poems the poets sent to each other privately for years before ultimately publishing the correspondence.

This is how the book starts:

How one old tire leans up against
another, the breath gone out of both.

Old friend,
perhaps we work too hard
at being remembered.

Which way will the creek
run when time ends?
Don’t ask me until
this wine bottle is empty.

While my bowl is still half full,
you can eat out of it too,
and when it is empty,
just bury it out in the flowers.

The poems are short observations, feelings put into lines. It’s clear the weight of time that is felt. But there are also moments of lightness sprinkled throughout. Two friends sharing their worlds through poetry as a balm over time.

Is this not the core of friendship?

Here in Racine, the happiest people are the ones with friends, often the same friends who were on their softball teams when it was still coach-pitch. Those are the friends who know each other’s parents almost as well they know their own. Friends with roots, friends that consider one another family. These are the friends that will likely continue to carry each other through the rest of time. Both heavy and light to consider.

So this week, a prompt to write a poem to a friend that you think of when you think of your time in Racine. It could be two lines, it could be twenty. But here are the guidelines I’m creating for myself. My poem will include: a shared memory, an observation from my current life, and a reflection on time. And I intend to share the poem with a friend.

I look forward to working on this one and sharing it with you soon.

Time is ticking on my post as Racine’s writer in residence. It’s been a gift to explore writing and Racine hand-in-hand. If you’ve been following along or are just joining, please consider writing a poem or two about your time in Racine and share it with me. If all goes well, there’s a forthcoming collection of poems about Racine to be published, and it’d be great to include your voice and thoughts. My email is sklblauren@gmail.com, inbox is open.

Best,
L.A. Sklba