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
Summer’s End
Thursday, August 21st, 2008
Someone said it in the hall today just as I was looking out on the greenery in full view outside a nearby window.
“Summer is almost over.”
I was in two worlds at the time: the one that allows me to walk hazily between the cubicle rows and glaring computer monitors back to my own square space, and this other place that is not deliberate enough to be called imagination or day dreaming or even an inner-dialogue. Caught on a plain between both mentalities, those words shocked me awake.
Summer is almost over almost as quickly as it began and soon the flourishing Cottonwood that I’d just begun to notice was soon going to whither to a skeletal remains of this beautiful tree. Am I that old already … that the time passes imperceptibly and before I know it, entire seasons have passed before I notice them come up around me?
My daughter, who only yesterday was a baby swaddled to near death on her first trip out with us is now almost six years old. Six years old next month and well into kindergarten. She can read and write and apologize for her mistakes, which means she can recognize ours, and we’re no longer perfect for her. But how we rank in her small world of personalities and acquaintances is still near the top, though that might change soon.
Another six years from now, our near-teen daughter will have no trouble finding issue with us. I had no idea my parents were when I was her age or how clueless they probably felt. I am still getting used to my friends being adults, and that has been a bigger reality struggle for me than my own adulthood. I had a professor in college once tell me that I possessed a wisdom older than my age at the time and I sometimes wonder if that is not the case now. If maybe age and wisdom have balanced or if now, in fact, I am in debt to intelligence. I haven’t stopped reading or trying to educate myself.
I read now more than ever before, but scholarly thought is more forced, less natural. It’s an effort to wonder about god. Now I have my own children to observe – to see the world through – without casting a vision onto others’. My circle of good friends has diminished, so I have to rely on myself now to shape my own perception, the way it should be. A simple statement made off-handedly in my presence set these thoughts flooding. If anything, that is a comfort. Overthinking is one habit that apparently doesn’t dissolve with age.
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Tags: Summer
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
