eight years ago today

Josh and Dad bought a keg.

People drove from all over to Cherry Road.

Jessica and I painted our nails and made chili.

Paul didn't show up.

Jason couldn't make it.

John needed directions.

Jameson brought the funnel.

Its the last night I see Raquel, Lara and Sarah in the same room.

My Dad bought Mom some Mike's Hard Lemonade.

I lent Rory a copy of Live on Two Legs.

Sols and Hightower are monitoring the beer.

My parent's get rid of the police at the door.

Mom was playing drinking games at the table with my friends.

We had a fire in the backyard.

Jess is teaching Yanks a thing or two about beer drinking the British way.

Jess had to go home, this was a party for her.

My neighbors were at their camp.

Ziggy's friend took a liking to Jess.

John and I fix the neighbor's phone and dance as everyone passes out.

That was eight years ago today.

Such a long time ago today.

What if Paul showed?

What if My neighbor's remembered to turn off the answering machine or lock the door?

What if I payed more attention to Cat and not him?

Could Ray Bradbury better explain that butterfly effect?

In my head I know. If it didn't happen the way it did, I would have never learned who I am. It had to happen that way. I never liked an easy lesson. I always have to earn it. I'd rather go up hill, counter current, against the grain. I opt for scars.

So now here I am.

why not

I have been wondering a great deal about the following topics lately.

Adult Playgrounds:

Remember when it was a challenge to climb the monkey bars? I'd like that again. Can we please have an adult playground? Really high slides, huge jungle gyms and exaggerated teeter totters.
I can not figure out why these don't exist. Instead we'd rather pay fifty dollars a month to run in place in front of CNN.


Gift Exchanges:

Kids, little ones, don't care if something is new. I think schools should have nights where the parents just come exchange crap instead of buying more.


Tents Welcome Here:

Ok, so I travel and I'm cheap. One of the nicest things a stranger ever did for me was invite me to camp in his yard. I was in Florida and the couple was from Montreal and we were seated together at dinner. They gave me their contact info and said if ever I was in Montreal I was welcome in their yard.
I have looked into couch surfing, like the idea. But want to offer my yard someday to anybody who needs it. Why not? If they're the type of people traveling with a tent they are probably ok by me.


Doggy Bag Donation:

The other night I was leaving the restaurant with my family and a homeless man asked me for my leftovers. Sure. No problem. We have such heavily traffic'd restaurant areas why not a little flag on a pole that signals a place to drop off perfectly good food? Hungry? Wait here and half a steak will be with you shortly.


Community Bonfires:

Firestation fundraiser? Ok, I will walk with my sling chair and six pack, give you ten bucks, and you burn something and let me stare at it. Deal.


Sunflower Pirates A'la Zak:

My old neighbor, Zak, is a creative man who loved gardening. One night we took a bunch of Sunflowers he started and planted them around the neighborhood. We hit abandon lots and un-lived in houses, and people who's gardens we deemed too perfect. I still feel the urge to fill abandon lots with sunflowers.


I'm not sure how original my thoughts are, but they're my little thoughts... what are yours?

Father's Day

This Father's Day I want my Dad to yell at me. I want him to pace a room at four o'clock in the morning demanding to know where I've been. I want him to carry on red in the face arms flailing and vocabulary mind blowingly complex handing down incredible consequences. I want him to explain ad nauseum why what I did was stupid and how I am lucky to be alive.

I want him to stare me right in the face and tell me he is disappointed in me and send me to my room.

I want to remember what it felt like to doubt he loved me, to believe he never understood, to think he was wrong and incredulous.

That ignorance wasn't bliss but it was easier. The power of love, the guilt for what I put him through and the acknowledgement of how right he was is the hardest and most important lesson of my life.

Now all he does is tell me I'm beautiful and how proud he is. Now all he does is wish I called more and more and more. The only time he raises his voice is in excitement when I see him. He isn't some tower of muscle with an acre of shoulders and power, he's a gray haired old man who needs help walking straight. So I put my arms around his small shoulders and support him. The shoulder's I sat on for years, the ones that straightened me out.

I love you Dad.

Treasure Hunt

For me there is hardly an easier way to fill an afternoon than thrifting. I am capable of hunting through a store full of already owned goods for ages. Never really looking for something in particular, just something interesting. As a rule, if I go looking for anything I need, it won't be there. But, there will be eight of them there the week after I've bought it at Target.

I like to find old glasses with monograms for friends with the same. A partial set of beer mugs etched with an F for Finchy or a B for the Byham house. You just never know what treasures you'll find.

I can get carried away going through unwanted or vintage greeting cards. I love finding the one that was slipped in with the rest but was already written in. Dear Len and Sal, congratulations on your wedding. I stand for a second every time wondering if I might find Len and Sal. If they are still crazy after all these years I'd love to give them the card.

I can tell you from first hand experience what you should never buy new. Never buy a new 25th Anniversary tray or photo frame. There is always something that says Happy 25th Anniversary at a thrift store, even the bad ones. Never buy a new framed Monet print, its another guaranteed item right along with a bread machine.

I think I know why I love used things so very very much. It goes back to the weekend we had to clean out Dad's house. My brothers, sisters and I had to go through each and every corner unearthing everything familiar and attached to our time there. We dragged it out to the driveway, to the curb and to the cars. It was either salvaged by us or someone passing by.

Slowly my home was just an empty house. We bought a shredder and I sat there with decades of Dad and Mom's old tax documents shredding garbage. I lost track of time in tears reading through little ridiculous check registers with Mom's writing. Some of Dad's archive of unneeded minutia was just interesting. But he no longer had the luxury of storing forty years of tax returns or credit card bills from the early eighties with stores no longer in business.

I had a pile of what I thought should be kept and the rest went out. Everything from our parent's life passed through us like sand through a sieve and out to sea. Or to the self storage a mile down the road.

Dad really had no idea what was going on. I'm not sure he knew his house was gone and so was most everything in it. I think of that as I wander isles at some charity store. I think of the items from an obviously long established home. I think of the work it took someone to donate away everything familiar or had to for someone they love. Maybe someone who once took care of them and no longer can take care of themselves.

I just think its respectful to try to get things there first. A trench coat some son hates to part with, it reminds him of his mother, he passes it on hoping someone finds a use for it. Cause we can't keep it all. I know. Everything can mean something and you can bury yourself with sentimental stuff. Even a mostly used pencil has spirit if you let it. And maybe you decide that's it, you can't part with it. But you can pack up the dishes.

They aren't stores they are part museum, part charity, part halfway home, part graveyard. But most of all, they are a second chance and a happy ending.

Shel

Shel Silverstein is a super hero. He wrote for Playboy and children. Lyricist and poet for Cash and The Rovers. He penned The Unicorn, and I sang it at the top of my lungs at every chance as a kid. Rats, cats, elephants.

Last night I listened to some of my favorite lyrics live, one line always makes me think of Mr. Silverstein. "My world begins where the road ends, watch me leave it all behind." I think the tone is different but my mind thinks of Where the Sidewalk Ends.

Shel Silverstein could appreciate a child's fragile perfection. The poem still gives me chills. I won't stop trying to find what's past the end of the road or where the sidewalk ends, I used to know... I swear it was right there a second ago.


Where the Sidewalk Ends

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

Thunder

It was around six in the morning, not quite time for the alarm to sound to wake me up for the day but I was already awake. The morning storm had me out of bed to close the windows, but not all the way. Just enough to still hear the rain and roar in the early morning sky.

I laid in bed and thought about how wonderful a way it was to wake up. With no one to share it with I felt alone. It was an otherwise, perfect morning.

The Rules of Mountain Climbing

I'm slowly climbing up the left side of the Bethesda Metro escalator. It is seriously crowded. The man behind me is fussy. He doesn't like how we have to stop every so often. He wants to know what the hold up is, or so he says.

I understand he is aggravated. His aggravation is aggravating me probably just as much as his impatience is aggravating him. I want to turn around and tell him to relax. Maybe some little kid is ahead of us and he wants to see if he can climb it all by himself. Maybe its an old man and he wants to know he still can. Maybe its another chick like me and she's fallen a few times.

I want to tell him he doesn't matter and the world would go on without him, so it isn't going to speed up or slow down for him either. Not today. No one likes waiting in line, too bad. Don't try to explain to me that you've got it all figured out that you couldn't use a couple minutes with nothing to do but wait and think. If this line is going to make you late, that's your fault. Be better prepared.

Right now he is probably forgetting his sister's birthday. Stop and think please, no one cares what your cruise control is set to. Get on your fancy phone and start apologizing to whomever you're holding up. And don't blame the escalator for adding two minutes to your commute, get up earlier.

Be human please, and do not assume I am with you, don't expect me to second your ridiculous mumblings. I know damn well my existence isn't worth the fuss. Keep your head down, mouth shut and climb with the rest of us. The person behind you would catch you if you were stricken with a heart attack just now, we wouldn't let you fall back. So don't worry if we can't let you run past. Take what you can get.