Radio Ga Ga
Thursday, October 16th, 2008
Sir Isaac Newtown’s mind was on something other than physics, I would guess, when he had his epiphany on the laws of gravity. An apple came loose from its branch high above, gaining speed on the drop down and shattering his daydream like an unexpected bomb going off, the thud of its odd shape hitting the ground reverberating in his head just as loud as the ideas that would follow. My theory: breakthroughs are not unfamiliar to people who slip off into a dream state while sitting in the shimmering light beneath a shade tree.
One day last week, while I was parked under a shade tree journaling, I decided I wanted hear talking on the radio rather than music –not just in that moment, but for what’s been more than a week now. I’d already been leaning that way on the weekends, specifically Saturday mornings, listening to the Jayhawks play football. I enjoyed being part of a smaller audience and the smallness of the state that comes through in the local commercials for the small businesses in Kansas, the farm products and the local sports talk shows. (more…)
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Tags: Free Writing, Radio
Usually reflected perfectly in the water, the trees are merely dark smudges in the lake top on this overcast day. The water seems particularly unfriendly, unwilling to smile back at the nature nearby or the sky – fogged by cloudy weather that has blocked the sun for two days straight.
Utility poles with the lines between them swooping off into the horizon stand rigid as though they were struck into the ground to catch flashes from an ensuing lightning storm. They are staked along the roadsides and the winding gray asphalt the delivery trucks follow and the T-shirted corporate workers on break work and jog along between office parks. (more…)
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Tags: Free Writing
Lunch Hour
Wednesday, September 17th, 2008
Moths that hatched in the final days of summer play above the overgrown grass and purple-headed weeds. They stand out, yellow, against the greenery, swooping into tangles and ducking out again, as though they aren’t finding what they want.
From thick spot to thick spot, they flutter on the wind, killing the afternoon, enjoying the warmth and the soft afternoon sunlight that’s overcome Kansas in mid-September. The temperatures have turned fall-like already and, though I ate lunch a couple of hours ago, I’ve decided to take in the scenery outside the corporate ofice complex from my car.
The main building here is surrounded fervent fields alive with buzzing and activity that most the workers notice. In a month, when the Earth has tilted some more, the volume will have lessened. Most of these afternoon creatures will freeze to death or go into slumber for the next season, when winter thaws to spring and the buds turn red and purple on tree branches.
Fall, so appropriately titled, usually comes on in late September, a pleasant substitute for the siffling heat of August. But this year, with transition being so gradual and the warmth fading already, the summer seems to be dieing and the fall is truly more like a drop from grace or distinction – something more esteemed, maybe, than what it is now.
On the drive into work, I try to remember where the most colorful shrubs are – where vines are wrapped around tree trunks – so that in the depressing gray melancholy and dried wheat rows of eternal February, I can imagine bright spots.
Those days are nearly five months away, but in my age (which I still like to consider relatively young), the memory of last winter and its delay of spring are still fresh on my mind.
At 4 o’clock, the warmest part of the day, summer returns to these Kansas fields. And, the insects and animals are temprarily fooled that’s June or July again. I’ll be inside at that time in a sterile office building that is sound-proofed against this nature and nearby interstate sounds. Winter or summer, it matters not … my afternoons during work week are essentially the same. So these intermittent breaks at lunch time are the best way to gather the wisdom and to be prepared for another long, cold winter.
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Tags: Free Writing, Summer
A honey-blonde glare, the same color as rich wheat beer, outlines the rooftops and building features.
The sun sets on the Crossroads district with its blocks staggered like steps as they progress up the hill on Wyandotte Street. At the top is a beautiful church, watching over all this urbanity, the small creative boutiques, the real estate offices, and the apperent factories where workers in casual dress smoke and curse on a perfect fall night.
The wind is nearly imperceptible close to the brick walls on the street’s west side. On the east, the wind comes barrleing down the block, picking up loose leaves and a concert flyer that’s come unstuck from a tarred telephone pole.
The edges on the buildings are sharp and pronounced against the perfect blue sky. Glass in the street lamps glow prematurely. And, the crickets in the long line tree branches poking through a chain-link fence along the sidewalk start chirping in anticipation of final sundown.
Cars parked streetside reflect the sunlight in big diamonds of white light. Jets from the downtown airport leave the sky streaked with white strips. I’m tired from a day spent writing and in anticipation of it. I feel as tired as the sun downs itself, burning itself in all the blueness, never able to overcome the coloring.
I walk these streets searching for inspiration, under the swooping power lines, past the gated, private parking lots, the trash dumpsters, art pieces in windows, empty salon chairs, hip lamps and lingerie, cafe windows with daily specials sloppily written on chalkboards. Then the breeze again, and I feel safe on these streets, transported to earlier in the summer when it was warmer and the anticipation greater. The more the searching goes on, the more I feel inspiration is looking for me a block over. Cross my path, something to capture on my handheld, a word painting or therabout, some sort of wisdom to impart.
Where does the mosquito come from in all this, circling my long sleeves futilely? If it were June, I’d have my blood sucked and he’d fly off with a fully tummy, back to the overgrowth in the lot by Southwest Boulevard. For now, he’s out on his own search, hoping to cross paths with warm red blood, and in that sense he’s not unlike the vagrants that wait for singles to walk down the wrong alley carrying whisky money in their pockets. I feel connected to the few living things I can see and hear.
The sun is half gone now as I walk only in shadows. I sit on the sidewalk ledge and look down the hill. I thinl about the big hill near my childhood home that we’d ride down wildly on skateboards hoping the wheels didn’t lock up on the chestnuts that would fall from overhanging trees. At this angle, the speed would be intense and too fast to stop, so the rider would have to jump off and abondon his board and watch it careen into the street.
Cars turn off and on Wyandotte, disappearing behind rows of buildings, brakes squeaking on even the newest model cars. Downtown at twilight, though, the streets are mostly silent and more like they were historically than they are during the day time.
The sun is down and I decide it’s time to turn my eyes to another street.
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Tags: Downtown, Free Writing, Summer
I am parked out behind the old pizza place at 5:30, by a stained wooden privacy fence separating the parking lot from an Colonial style house with flaking paint. The fencerows in this neighborhood are overhung with greenery either for latent privacy or sound insulation from the highway.
The lot has been freshly laid and its black as tar, which draws the heat and aggression of the fading late-August sun. I have the windows rolled down but only the sounds seem to penetrate, no air and no smells – just cars stopping and starting, rubber wheels screeching on the asphalt, a motorcycle sputtering to life deeply and hollowly, all its noise reverberating on the fence and the pizza place. How many stoic people are on the road now on their way home to places with the workday ended, with home as a destination or even a goal for most of the day, but with this vague banality in them – not rejoicing, but instead shut down and or just reserved on the time they have for themselves?
Crickets in the nearby bushes sense the twilight and set in with music. What clouds there are in the sky are whispy and thin so the sun shines through and there is no temporary shade. How many of the people on the home now recognized the sky today or will later? Few if any. And in this place where existences not more than 50 years ago used to be so tied to farming and what happened with the weather isn’t a consideration at all anymore for most.
The spaces begin to fill up. A Buick pulls in with the windows down and the driver kills the engine and an over-loud radio commercial. Traffic has died down considerably and the wind with it. Above the fenceposts, the branches hang completely still. My mind slows down. I’m starting to sink into the relaxed front-porch-swing mentality, wise for my years and can see myself in old age commenting harshly about the kids that pass on the sidewalk – berating them for the clothes they wear and their stupidity for playing so close to the street.
As the vision comes to me, my wife approaches the driver’s side window with kids in tow and I look out into the parking and, for the first time this afternoon, see something familiar. We’re only five miles from our house, but this might as well be another world – parked out here at an hour when everyone seems to be going separate ways.
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Tags: Free Writing
