Archive for the ‘Piece of Mind’ Category
Sky Line
Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008
Better views are out another 10 miles or so, where barbed-wire fencing replaces the guardrails on the interstate. Further out where houses are separated by acres of soy beans and feathery wheat tops, the land opens up, and the earth as it spreads around can seem as vast as the sky. Tonight, I am not fortunate enough to be out that far in the country, so from the front porch of our little house in this small town, I trick myself into believing that the rooftops in our neighborhood bring some perspective to the heavens.
Starry holes burn through the orange haze that hangs above the city lights. Directly above, the celestial formations are out in full view tonight, but on either side of the horizon, though, they have been wiped clean by the urban glare put off by this small town of 10,000 people. Under the orange glow in the sky is a foggy white and its source may just be the tremendous July heat smothering out a clear night. (more…)
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Tags: Country
Drawn, maybe, the way a June bug is to porch light, she’s spent the last three nights under street lamps talking to boys with her head cocked in flirtation. Melissa, the 16 year-old girl who has lived up the street for almost four years, has never spoken a word to us, and so left it to our imagination to decide whether these suitors are her type or just her toys for temporary play.
The gentlemen callers move around in the shadows and occasionally try to entertain her by choosing props from her nearby garage – a skateboard, basketballs to dribble on the driveway while they conversate, and in one instance a wheelchair to sit in. Their outlines are paper-thin on the profile and lanky. Nearly all of them wear baggy jeans and sleeveless shirts – some go shirtless – and they drive 4×4s and cars that sound as though if someone were to climb on the back bumpers and stomp, the shocks would blow away on the wind in one last ear-piercing howl. But, despite the obvious physical and social shortcomings that go with the age, they move with surprising confidence – not necessarily in themselves, but possibly because they know their chances of making a connection are good.
Melissa’s attitude and her sense of style – which again, is all we have to work from – says that she’s done more than entertained the notion of being with them. Crude as the suggestion might be and baseless – for all we know, she might be a do-gooder, involved in her school and a volunteer in a local community organization – we have reasons for our suspicions, chiefly a few necking sessions in parked cars, empty beer cans her friends have spread in our front yard and the drunken, midnight fireworks displays in the absence of her parents.
I am tempted to talk to her. One morning last winter, her car was buried a foot deep in snow. I was out clearing my car and almost stepped through the exhaust clouds to help her dig it out. I got the feeling she wouldn’t appreciate the help or that she might misconstrue my intentions, so I backed out watching her struggle with an under-sized window scraper.
Another time, before the morning in the snow, my wife and I saw her at the nearby sports bar sitting with her mother. It was after 10 on a Friday and there was a circle of empty beer cups on the tabletop. How she was allowed to stay there at such a late hour can probably be blamed on small town ethics and an aversion toward neighbors and the law. But her young face stood out when it ordinarily wouldn’t, not if she were surrounded by her classmates – people her own age whose faces are as fresh and youthful as hers.
We felt sorry for her – that she was glimpsing her full life now. That darkened bars and the hopes of finding someone in the neon signs or in dark driveways would be the bright spots in a forever small town life. Her mother married her high school sweetheart and they are still married to this day. They have Melissa who now seems to belong to no one except these optimistic boys who hopefully remain expectant of a reward that never comes.
But again, I make all these assumptions with no real knowledge, based only on impressions and mere deductions. I have crafted a whole life for this poor girl and it’s a dark one – all because we have never spoken. Next time I find her in the driveway, I am going to introduce myself – save her future, at least in my own mind, which I suspect makes me one of the few males with good intentions in her short life so far. And the strange part is, we distrust each other the most, which is why I shut the porch light out and go to bed while the June bugs return to their places in the flowers.
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Tags: Neighbors, Suburbia
She left this morning wearing a blue and beige madris dress she’s had since college. The zipper on one side has given out and stops an inch shy from the end of the teeth track, but its kept its color and, otherwise, is as new as her senior year.
After nine years and three children, it’s as though it was tailor made for her return to college. Her academic career has begun again. This time her pursuit is not a BA in elementary ed, but re-certification. In the five years she’s stayed at home with the children during the week, the classroom has changed considerably – that much she’s learned from her one course she’s taken online. But today she stepped back into the classroom from the other perspective, as student, trading the better moments and even the harder ones with the children for her own education.
It is a tremendous trade for her that I imagine, knowing her character, comes with a measure of guilt. Her days at home with our brood are her lifeline, and she teaches them in the most innovative ways using what can be found in and around the house or what crosses their paths on excursions to the neighborhood park or the movie theater.
Just a few weeks ago she turned a caterpillar our daughter found into a science experiment. A cocoon lay in a small cage filled with leaves near the kitchen sink until hatching into a white moth they sat free together. Fuzzy, as he was named, makes random appearances now in the back yard. The children shout his name when they sight any white moth that flutters under the power lines and over the fence posts. Part of that innocence comes from being children, part comes from her and the way she’s taught them to see the world in their time together.
But she’s sacrificed it, without complaint, in hopes of bringing them a better life one day. She deserves a new dress, I think, as she steps out onto the front porch and the geraniums in hanging baskets that have just gotten a fresh morning drink. Water stands in places pooled on the treated wood slabs. No one will be here to water them during this heat spell and it’s then that I realize that even the flowers will miss her.
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Tags: Family Life, Marriage
If you’re into comic books, keep an eye on Present Magazine. Co-publisher Pam Taylor contacted me late last week about my next assignment. This weekend, I’ll be heading to an infamous bookstore in Mid-town for a book signing with two local artists. From what little I know, the character they have created has one of the most daring (and dark) back stories I’ve ever heard. Brave would also apply if the authors/illustrators share a similar background.
I won’t give away any more in fear of jeopardizing the scoop on this piece, but I’m looking forward to writing it. Pam and Pete Dulin have let me run absolutely wild on the pages of their online publication. I’ve relished every word of every sentence. The 18th Street Fashion Show story in June raised the bar on sentence length and outlandish commentary on my part.
This new assignment might be darker, but that does not necessarily mean more reserved. Look for it in Present or the link to it here come early August.
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Tags: Business, Clients, Local Stuff
Poolside
Sunday, July 20th, 2008
From one water entry to the next (fitting for July.)
Late now in the afternoon, the children have abandoned the inflatible pool in the back yard for darkened bedrooms with stirred air. They sleep beneath the constant whip of ceiling fans that beat them down to dreams with cool breezes. Their father, who has had them to himself this weekend, has decided to slip into the lukewarm water that acts as a conductor for electric cold when the wind finally decides to blow.
The trees have almost become petrified – only a few random leaves wave. The air-conditioning units outside the backs of houses sing louder than the robins and the other birds who dare return every year for summer in Kansas. No neighbors are out to see this strange spectacle, a grown man laid completely flat in a pool meant for a few toddlers and with edges painted with tropical fish and dolphins with trails of splashes behind them.
This is my 33rd summer here and it has suddenly become as brutal as ever. Mild June and ealy July have given way to this, the hottest day of the year so far, and fevered, strange behaviors from grown adults. One leg beaded with pool water hangs over the shallow ledge, pointing toward the back privacy fence. The other is submerged except for a big toe and is pointing the opposite direction. Sweat beads on my forehead at the hair line and gradually slips down my temlples, over my eyebrows.
Dogs that usually patrol the neighborhood fencelines now lie quietly in the shade of dog houses and overhangs too overheated to chase squirrels or passing people, if there were any. Outdoors has become a monolithic still life painting with front doors that will never open and sidewalks and streets that stay bare. I am moving, shifting weight in the akward pool with gimmick sides, but too low to the ground to be part of the scene.
A bird in the nearby trees has begun a slow, sad whistle and abruptly stops. There is no one to return his call. Just me, some overhead powerlines and circuit breakers shapped like trash cans.
The yard is empty without the children in an esoteric way much deeper than the absence of their screams and laughter. Two chairs have been overturned by the clubhouse. Three empty swings barely sway in the most powerful winds the day can muster. I’ll wake them up soon, if they haven’t already wakened, and they can have their pool back from the strikingly tall, dark and hopefully handsome bowl of fruit that steps out of the painting.
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Tags: Kids, Nature, Suburbia, Summer
