My Favorite Friends

Posted on by

0

Daisies have white petals and yellow centres.  Much like the Cadbury Eggs, a filling of white and yellow surrounded by chocolate.

The field and the hill are scattered with them, growing in small bunches, and, swaying in the wind.  They are the most beautiful weed, and if you encourage them, they will cover the lawn.

When this happened in our backyard, in the summer, I stood with a lollipop in my mouth, sucking, and gazing at all the daisies.  I felt as if I had a daisy in my mouth, its sweetness filling and savoured.

I remember one day, because I was wearing my favourite dress–a baby pink, A-line flare.  I lobed that if I crouched down my dress would spread outward and cover my feet.  I looked like a pink bell.  I spent those days, in my pink bell dress, laughing.

The days were always sunny, and warm, but not too hot and humid.  I also remember because the freezies we had didn’t melt and become sugary water in blue, purple, pink, or yellow, those colours of the rainbow that taste like colours of the rainbow.  Now, in these summers, water droplets cover the length of the long freezie and make holding and eating one a slippery mess.  I love the cool blueberry in my mouth, and the quite cool sensation of holding something frozen, but keeping dry.  Those days, were a long time ago, and the earth has made so many rotations that it has probably rotated out of that particular orbit.  Alas…. Time changes everything!

One day, many years later, when I didn’t wear the pink dress any more, my boyfriend came over to our house.  It was an ordinary day, except that it would be the first time he came to our house.  I was excited, as he had casually just called on the telephone and said he would be riding his bicycle over and would be arriving in the next half hour.

It was summer, and I was quickly …  maybe I was in a panic….  I was trying to decide if I should wear something a little more suited to seeing my boyfriend, who was quite brand new at the time.  When he had called I was lounging around in an old pair of shorts and just any old t-shirt.  Part of my consideration was what we would be doing.  If we were going to go out for a walk in the ravine….  Then I wouldn’t really have to change into anything “nicer.”  I was not exactly making enough money to purchase all sorts of hiking gear, so, wearing any old pair of shorts and an old pair of sneakers would probably be all I needed.

Being the guy that he was, and probably still is, now, he arrived in twenty minutes.  He rang the door bell, and i rushed to open the door.  I had not changed…  as I just immediately made the decision that I didn’t want my little brother and sister bugging us.  He came in, and had a pop and sat and talked with all of us.  I was thinking constantly of taking off without my little tow-alongs.  My mother expected me to looke after my siblings during the summer holidays sine they were younger, but, they could survive being left alone for an hour without the supervision….  Not that I was especially responsible at the time.

We did take off not long after the pop was finished.  I asked, quite suddenly during a lull in the conversation, whether my boyfriend wanted to go to the river in the ravine with me?  My brother and sister were quick this time…  and I was grateful…..  my boyfriend immediately said quite excitedly that we should go, while my sister and brother said that they’d stay at home.  I didn’t have to be the one who said they couldn’t go.

The ravine and the river were not far away…  within two minutes we could be in a forest of trees and deep into a woodchip, pine needle floor that would lead to a small river that we could follow far, and even get lost in.

My boyfriend had never been to this part of  “Green Space” within the city, and I felt almost lost, surprisingly, as I began to think about how to show him around it.  He made it easy, however, keeping up an easy flow of conversation.  He never once asked where we were going….  As apparently, my statement from the beginning about going into the ravine and finding the river was enough for him.  This made me believe that just going to the river was enough.

There were several places that we could stand at right beside the river, and several places where the river would become shallow enough that standing on the edge we could reach our hands in and literally touch the sandy bottom of the stream. This is where we stopped and stood looking at everything surrounding us.  A few times, my boyfriend picked up a stone and skipped it across the water.  Sometimes it went far enough to go beyond just the middle of the stream.  this was the first time I had seen someone, in the flesh, do the skipping stone across the water.  It was impressive, and I felt in awe of my boyfriend.  I had thought, always, that it was just movie magic, but apparently, anyone could learn how to do it.

As we stood longer at the side of the stream, we began to notice the things just in the water.  Surprisingly, there were schools and schools of tiny fish.  They were silvery, and tiny and darted, faster than the striking of lightening, everywhere.  As soon as I saw them, I was utterly delighted.  I had never thought it possible that there would be life inside the tiny river in the ravine.  It did not seem wild enough to support any type of life.  Where would all the food come  from?

We stood looking down at them, in awe.  Suddenly, my boyfriend declared that they were definitely guppies.  Before this, I had only seen guppies in the pet store.  The ravine river was murky, from the sandy bottom and the slowness of the water which encouraged the water to be become murky with decomposing foliage.  I was very impressed.

We laughed, at the darting fish.  A few times my boyfriend put his hand and fingers in to cause the guppies to suddenly change direction, in an attempt to pick up one of the guppies, but they were incredibly fast.  It was exciting to see the quickness of silver which, given the sunlight, made a quick “spark” with the sudden turn the fish made.

As we grew tired, slowly, we suggested to each other, as we stood up again, by the side of the river, that we should go home.  My boyfriend dried his hands on his pants, and we turned around and started to head home.  This time I  did not feel myself looking everywhere in a scattered manner, to try to find something to say or to do.  I felt that my boyfriend and I had had a happy afternoon.  As we slowly walked, by boyfriend reached for my hand, and we held hands, lightly, walking without intention, out of the ravine.

We were holding hands, me in complete contentment and thinking that I had a cool boyfriend, when he let go suddenly, and running towards some thicket of bushes and trees, he picked a bunch of daisies, and offered them to me.  I was surprised by his gesture and accused him of vandalism and thievery of public property, causing the both of us to laugh.  I accepted his bunch of daisies anyway, reminding him that I had a backyard full of them at home already.

We were not a couple for more than a year-and-a-half, and i have not seen him since, but this particular afternoon is an afternoon I will forever remember, it being so pleasant, the sun being up, the way things worked without effort, and the way I didn’t feel as if I was always looking at the future and wondering if there would be future, given the sad circumstances.

I am someone who saves the things I love.  And that afternoon is saved, with the daisies and the silvery guppies.  And the memory of a kind boyfriend who made being a teenager exciting, and something that felt safe and full of being in love.

Summer Cottage

Posted on by

0

The dock and a canoe and an eagle flying down from the mountain up ahead.  The music loud–and the neighbors joining–a surprise to us–we thought there was a noise bylaw.  This year, the water fowl have gone to the lake south, leaving our lake a pristine, still, and quiet place–for one summer at least.  There is only four more weeks we will be in the little cottage here.  We share rooms when we are here, unlike back home, in the city.  There, everyone has a bedroom for themselves.

This year, we remembered to bring an alarm clock….  One that doesn’t need to be plugged in….. we missed the early morning hike to the waterfall, which if you walk behind, underneath the rock face, the sunrise shines through the falls and creates a beautiful rainbow to look through.  My brother wants to catch the sunlight at the angle that makes the whole cave wall a rainbow.  So far, we haven’t caught it yet.

We got hungry one day, just wandering on the lake.  We had planned on only going down the path that winds between nearby cottages, but, we ended up taking our walk beyond the end of the path.  We continued our walk, sticking close to the lake.  There were places where the lake water had come up higher and it left many stones and pebbles.  It was more difficult to walk, but we like to pick stones and see if we could skip and the right-shaped one further than three hops.

This year, my parents allowed me to invite my boyfriend up too.  He was my first boyfriend, and we were very much friends with each other, so my parents trusted us together.  We were not the type to fool around.  The appeal was the fact of having someone of the opposite sex close, knowing  secrets, and valuing the other for more than it being fun to hang out.  So, I was actually having a very good summer.  When my boyfriend would go back to the city, we promised to call each other.  I had a fleeting thought of writing letters…  but it soon became undoable….

One day, during the week that my boyfriend was with us, he whispered to me that he wanted to try skinny dipping in the alcove of the lake further down, beyond where the path ended.  We were not allowed to share a bedroom, and I was sharing my bedroom with my sister, while my boyfriend and my brother roomed together.  So, the problem was escaping early in the morning…  when everyone would not be up yet, so we could skinny dip in some sort of privacy.  My sister would probably just groan at the alarm at 5am, and I guessed that my brother would probably just sleep right through it.  I did guess right as both of us, my boyfriend and I, ran into each other coming out of the bedrooms.  We immediately started shushing each other, as we both started quietly to close the bedroom doors.

Like me, my boyfriend had a t-shirt and pair of shorts on.  I had two towels also with me, as I was sure I wouldn’t like to be wet in my clothes.  When we slipped out through the door, locking it, we were surprised that the early morning air was so much cooler than during the day.  So we started running, my boyfriend being larger, he ran a little faster, and it made me whisper loudly at him to slow down for me.

Once we were out of  the sight of the cottage, and giving ourselves some breathing room, we started to slow our pace and eventually we slowed to a comfortable, slow, walk.  It was beginning to be quite bright now.  And there was a haze as lake water rose with the temperature.  It was still cool.  We walked side by side, thinking and wondering if we could even wade into the water.

The alcove we both knew from a previous walk  down the path, was about ten minutes from the cottage.  Just like that walk, we were both in flip-flops, and  our feet were becoming dusty from the dirt and sand path.  There was the occasional stone, but nothing that would make us twist an ankle or fall if we began to run.  If we walked lower down closer to the lake water, we would be walking on rocks and stones….  finding it impossible to avoid them.

As we got closer to the curve in the lake, and the ground became more level with the lake, my boyfriend started to run-jog, kicking his flip-flops off and taking his shirt and shorts off.  He yelled at me to hurry up and follow him.  And I couldn’t resist his exhortations and started to run after him too.  He had got himself naked by the time he was at the edge of the lake.  Although I didn’t tear my clothes off crazily, I also didn’t bother picking up his discarded things.  I stood there, beside the lake, watching him wade in, and I began taking my flip-flops, shorts, and t-shirt off too.  It was less than thirty seconds that I was doing this, and, soon, I was in the lake with him.

He didn’t wade in very far, but the water was at his waist, so I saw his chest.  He was very angled and chiseled like most teenage boys, and it didn’t take me long to run through the water to get to him.  The water came a little higher on me, but I still was very anxious and embarrassed about being naked, despite the water.  He stopped splashing around and had started to walk towards me, and soon, he splashed water at me.  I instinctively held up m hands and ducked, screaming.  I started to tell him to stop as the water was beginning to make me cold.  When he stopped, and I looked up, at him, he started to grin in a silly way, and he said, “You know, you really are very beautiful….  Can I come a little closer?”  My arms covered my chest and I was hugging myself.  I said, “You are such an idiot!”  But instead of stopping there, I pushed a wave of water at him.  Screaming and yelling from both of us ensued as we continued to splash each other.  Suddenly, because I had not noticed in the dawning of morning, my boyfriend had his arms around me annd he held me until I knew to be still.  He bent his head a little, and kissed my forehead, my nose, and then my lips.  We savoured our kiss, and slowly, let go.

This walk to the lake and the skinny dip did not take us long.  We dried off, were dressed, and back at the kitchen in the cottage within an hour.  No one actually noticed that we had gone missing for an hour.  We made ourselves and everyone else breakfast and savoured our secret.

Getting Close to Sloan

Posted on by

0

The band Sloan was a big deal ten years ago, and everyone who was anyone was into them.  They were the band that never lived under a rock.  So, it was a big deal when my friend excitedly telephoned me to leave everything I was doing at home and rush downtown with him to get exclusive tickets to a taping of their interview and mini-concert at the television station.  This, as my friend knew, was exactly what I did.  I recall studying for a chemistry class since the pre-exam test was happening the next day.  I actually had habits like this, dropping studies and homework for fun my friends  were all into and doing.  Just to say, so that it is said, I actually failed that test and I think I had to make up the marks in summer school the coming summer break.

So, around dinner time I made it to the line-up, which was around the block already when I got there.  When I saw the length of the line, my first thought and feeling was disappointment as I was sure the studio was not as large to fit all of us into the audience.  My second thought was hope.  I immediately mentally hoped that my friend had made it down earlier and got in line much earlier.  Lucky us, both situations were true.

We happily greeted each other and hugged.  It was our common greeting.  Apparently, he had been there for more than an hour by the time we met up.  We became accountants and counted the waiting teenagers in front of us.  We felt that it would be a fifty-fifty chance of either getting in last or not getting in at all.  We crossed our fingers and tried to relax and calm down.  Who knew what the television people had in mind….  We had watched the show enough times to know that there could only be fifty in the audience. It was a small studio, meant to capture the intimacy of fans and their idols.  So, we were nervous and hopeful, and afraid of disappointment.  We talked little, but that was our habit.  We were good friends and were comfortable as friends.  Often the only reason why we would be around each other was to talk about music, to find a place to go hang out and dance (the city hall had Friday Night concerts outside in the Square where there was a beautiful shell-shaped stage), and to walk through the city looking for music stores and buying CD’s.  We could make a whole afternoon of four hours a trek through mid-town to downtown.  We would go home satisfied with purchases and hoping we didn’t make wrong purchases.  CD’s were still something of a precious purchase.  It was always fun to open up the case, after tearing off the plastic wrap, and looking through the booklet of art and dedications.  As well as listening to the whole album and trying ourselves to critique the songs as if we were professional music critics.

Well, the line started to move forward as the front doors of the building opened up.  It was actually happening!  The ushers and gophers were counting  us and determining who to let in.  I wondered if we would be lucky enough to see a producer!  It moved slowly, which kept our excitement up, but, it seemed everyone would be let in!

In about twenty minutes, we had inched our way to the doors.  There, was a woman, trendy but professional, with a clip board.  She looked at us and smiled, and then tore two strips from something attached to the clipboard, and handed one to each of us.  She explained that we should ring it around our wrists and keep it there to get into the taping of the show next weekend.

Excitedly, we walked off to the side, away from the front doors and the line-up.  I was so enamored with our next thing thing to do, that I almost put the wrist band on immediately.  It was paper, and would not have survived a week’s worth of showers.  My friend stopped me just as I was looking at the sticky part of the band and anticipating pulling off the paper and sticking the two ends of the wrist band together.

It was a school night, and since we had not had dinner, we debated whether we should spend another hour downtown, or, whether we should rush home?  One of the things I was chronically short of all the time, was pocket money, and an unexpected expenditure like dinner on a school night was going to make me poor as well as late for school the next morning as I would most likely sleep in.  We laughed, and decided to stop off for pizza, and then, go home.

The week went by quickly, and, perhaps because I was very excited, and my friend was too, it did not seem to drag.  It seemed that almost as soon as I had gotten the wrist band, the time came up that I had to put it on for the show.

As requested, we arrived an hour before the scheduled taping and, surprisingly, they did not open the doors until twenty minutes before the start of the show.  As this point, many ushers and gophers came out the open doors and moved us into the building.  First, we put our jackets and coats in a coat room….  There was no security and we were told to remember to take our coasts and jackets with a us afterwards.  Then we were ushered into a waiting area.  Here, there were a few benches and chairs, and as each group made its way into this room, a producer spoke to us and gave us general information and “rules of conduct” as well as a short information on what would happen and how long it would take.  The gist was that we would only be in the building for the hour of the taping and we would be expected to leave as soon as the taping was over.

This whole time, I was excited, and becoming more and more excited.  I smiled a lot at my friend.  We grinned at each other about how silly it all was.

Then, from the waiting room, we finally went through a short, darkened hallway which led into the studio, which was dimly lit for ambiance.  Here, ushers and gophers were everywhere.  The band would be in the middle and the audience would surround them, the instruments and the video jockey.  The lighting was warm, and seeing the band’s instruments made us excited and giddy.  My friend and I were directed to stand with three rows in front of us by the big “garage door” windows, which were open despite the coolish weather.

Without warning, the bands latest signature song began blaring….  Apparently, being excited and too distracted, I had missed the entrance of the band, despite the VJ’s intro and admonishments to welcome them.  “Money City Maniacs” opens with a siren and sudden guitar wailing.  I was surprised and in love!  My heart flew out of my chest and I screamed with the rest of the audience.  I think I remember jumping up and down and clapping my hands to add to the noise.

The rest of the show was just as exciting.  I had never been this close to a band, or to anyone famous before.  I thought that they were closer to God than I had ever thought anyone was.  Seeing them in actual size only increased my esteem of them…  Even though they were short at about 5’8″ and 5’10”.  They seemed to have some sort of supernatural power or exceptional genius that made them famous and revered and loved.  From that night on, I have never been able to look down on musicians of any type.  To be able to create a song….  from nothing but strings and electricity, amazes me.

I have lost touch with my friend.  I think he is now married and living in a small town….  But I have never forgotten that week and the night of the taping.  Even now, when my wrist band is lost, probably ruined with water in a dump site somewhere, my heart still jumps at the memory of “Money City Maniacs.”

Hanging Out With Friends

Posted on by

0

Look in the distance, do you see the car driving on the hills?  It’s like seeing the roller coaster when it’s far away–the train of cars travel the track–the noise clicking and clacking.  The ride down the hill is a rush of noise and wind.  The screamers have no qualm and scream.

I think the roller coaster is like the popping corn machine at the movie theatre.  Irrisistible.

The hills are beautiful.  Come hang out with me there.  It’s as far as you can see, and then, it just drops….  Into the valley on the other side.  It’s a place in suburbia, surprisingly.  No need to drive for two hours for this fun.  We can make it there in summer or in winter.  It’s just a big hill, so, you have to bring your own picnic.

The hills are on top of each other, building up, climbing higher, and the mounds can be seen, following them, up, into the horizon.  They change colour with each season…  white with a blanket of snow in winter, the greyish green of regeneration in spring, the bright, bright green of healthy growth in summer, and the yellow of dying grass in fall.  It is beautiful here.  And, I do have to travel to get here, but not like when I want to find myself skiing on a hill.

I miss the days when the roller coaster was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.  It was complete and utter beauty.  Strength, power, noise, propelled movement, and the thrust and rust o wind.  I saw the engineers sitting at their drafting tables, perhaps their hands on a keyboard and a mouse, as they made the ability of flight come alive.  I loved that riding the hill downward gave me a reason to scream.

I miss that all of my friends and I could just go, on a bus, out to a whole bunch of wild rides…, our favourite one being the Wild Beast.  It was rickety because it was built when wood was cheaper than reinforced steel, and we loved imagining the possible catastrophy of the wood cracking and ripping and just collapsing beneath the weight of the cars with us in it, flying.  Part of my scream was a dare to the inanimate wood to just collapse!

Today, I am more likely to become motion sick on those rides.  I get off, feeling nauseas, and wishing that good things could last forever.  Why is it roller coasters only exist in my memory?  Anything that they are now, are just illness-causing games…  I gamble with myself, with my children, and with my younger cousins and my new nephews saying…  “The next one….  I’ll get on the next one….  I’m not too sick yet!!!”

Do we only go on these rides because we imagine what it is first, before ever, ever, even approaching close to one?  Do we hear the words, “roller coaster,” and know what it is?  Or is the sight of a train of cars running on a track and making a rhythmic beat all the way to the top, …  and we’ve already decided?  Do we watch the cars follow the round about tracks until the end, making sure no one dies, and then, fearlessly, make our decision to go on it?

I tease my nephews, they are young, and fearless, and will attack anything that even sounds remotely fun.  It is a rite of passage towards the time when riding… a hill, a board, or a car, involves more than just daring.  It involves responsibility…., and more importantly, the ability to take control, which is the ability to use the power in your hands.  At what point does all of this make sense?  So, it’s not about booking with mom and dad about borrowing the car for the weekend…., or even for just a few hours…., it’s about filling it up with gas, it’s about parking it in an appropriate place, not only to save on the parking ticket, but so that the car just doesn’t get lifted.  There’s also not putting too many friends into the car, as that makes the car go fast–and the friends screaming their approval about making the car go fast, will make it go fast.  This is a trap for instant car accident if not instant paralysis from getting hurt in the accident.

I miss the days when friends were easy to find and easy to entertain… now, going out with friends, there is a minimum investment of a few hundred dollars just to start the evening.  We leave the kids at home, with a babysitter….  We take the car….  We go a little earlier for drinks….  Then, there is dinner, and, if it is in the evening, sometimes there is a show we can catch.  Lunch is similar…  Cheaper, but difficult to do, is the shopping trip with the girlfriends.  Everyone is on a different schedule, and this makes spending an afternoon together difficult to plan into happening.  But, as human beings always are, when there’s something that we can take advantage of, and, gain from, we will probably plan it into happening.

So,  from the days of  “riding the rails,” when my heart hit the quick beat, now, just driving the safely back from a trip and seeing the house up the drive and getting into the garage, is a true treat, making my heart hit that quick beat.

Have We Changed?

Posted on by

0

Do bands play in warehouses and open fields any more? Have they moved on to the stadiums and amphitheatres, away from makeshift stages?  Is it fun any more to go to a concert?

Do we meet our friends at the neighbourhood park, or the greenspace just around the corner?

Do we read books, watch movies, and drink coffee with a cigarette or beer in hand?  Do we remember to eat breakfast?  Have we changed?  Instead of running around for no reason at all–with our friends running after us–chasing us because it is fun–we push ourselves into fitness clubs to be on a treadmill for an hour.

We drool for a great armchair–not to be able to jump high on it–but to sink deep into it and forget we are awake and even alive as we get lost in TV’s imaginary world.  If the winners win, we win.

Are we more lost, now, or when we start making different decisions than we used to?  Where are we going?  Or, have we stopped ourselves from going anywhere?  Do we wait in order to be closer cousins with death or are we too afraid to move, as if we were to move, we travel close to the grave?

We think our children know so much more than we did at their age, and we run just to stay ahead of them.  It is so much easier to break the rules in this world–we have hope, and, we fear the ease of a gun or of a few dollars.

We made decisions, often with limits, and all children need today, is a password.  When in the past, we would steal $20 from mom’s purse, children can drops hundreds with an account, on any site in this day.

There are things I look at, like inflation, and it makes me feel that I have accomplished more than my parents have.  I look at the degree I have from college, and it makes me feel the world recognizes me as one of those geniuses that needs to paid slightly more than everyone else.  I look at the jobs my grandparents and, even, my parents have had, and I think that growing knowledge base and the growing brains of human beings are leading to more good things.  No, I do not believe that we will become extinct….  We have too many brains for that!

What is alarming, is that what I saw happen to me, is continuing to happen with my children.  They are smarter at a younger age.  They have more decision-making power….  They see when there is obviously a question or even a contention over an issue that they rightly can make a decision for themselves!  The most common one that happens, is where they start bargaining for “something extra”:  an extra hour up before bed?,  one more hour on the computer?, if they clean up their room today, can we make a trip to McDonald’s this weekend?  Where does a five-year-old start to learn how to bargain like criminal negotiators?  … But it is happening!!

I am looking forward to my children growing up.  They are beautiful and wonderful.  They are a great gift, and I am glad that I can’t return them.  Life is never turning stale, and life is sometimes hard and difficult, but I am not willing to give up, because of change, or because I am not brave enough to live it.  I promise, to live it!

It Sounds Like A Movie Called Fun

Posted on by

0

We were on the swing set, each on either side, pumping our legs to go higher and higher.  We screamed, we shouted.  The neighbours must have thought some children were falling into a bonfire.

There was also a children’s park within a five minute, fun and walk.  It was like an enlarged play pen without fences and railings.  We loved it here.  We could climb life-sized jungle-gyms and feel brave being several feet higher than the top of our parents’ heads.

It was easy to shout at each other and not think we were breaking rules or being vulgar, whether it was being vulgar for a girl, or ungentlemanly for a boy.  If we began playing tag on the equipment, there would be screaming on top of it all as we ran from playset to playset.  We didn’t want to get stuck on the sandy gravel without the purpose for running.  The “It” had to come chase!

These were the days when I was at most eight years old.  Most of my playmates were the same age.  We loved to see how far each other would go.  We were daring them as much as we were daring ourselves.

One of my favourite friends was a boy named Lucas.  He was beautifully lost.  And he wasn’t afraid to say some things, unlike some of the other boys…., and, even, some of the girls.  Surprisingly, for his straight-forward, unabashed, daring, he did not get beat up…  or bullied, or called any name that was derogatory.  There was some magic in this, my childhood friend.

Then, one day, just the usual late spring day, at the time we were in the school yard during recess, we found ourselves in the sand underneath a wooden playset that was high enough to have a slide.  In this space, covered by the floor made of wood, Lucas and I were squatting.  We had sticks in our hands and were dragging them through the moist gravel.  I was scraping words I knew into it, and, from what I could see, Lucas was just dragging his stick to make parallel lines.

All of a sudden, Lucas asked me a question I had never heard before.  He asked, “Do you want to have a staring contest?”  As he asked, his stick stopped moving and he tilted his head up, and level, to ask.  I hesitated….  Not sure what exactly would happen in a “Staring Contest.”

“Okay,” I said, after a pause, looking at him a little lost and expecting him to continue his explanation to make the situation clear.  Lucas, at this point, looked back down at his stick and started to draw straight lines again.

I continued to look at him, and becoming patientless and frustrated with the situation, I asked him how to play again.

Lucas looked up, and through his glasses, in the dimness of the covered sandbox, I saw his eyes focus on me….  and just stare.

I became extremely frustrated, and threw my stick at him.  If I had known what “Idiot” meant I would have shouted it at him, but the word I knew and understood, was, “Stupid!”

It is now possible for me to say that Lucas has probably gone on to other things, other girls, and got himself a nice job to make some nice money.  Now, I do not regret that silly day, or the fact that we moved away from each other.  I feel lucky to have had a favourite friend  who was a boy at such a young age.  He is forever the definition of an eight-year-old boy for me.  Thank you, Lucas!

My First Fiction

Posted on by

0

The first time I wrote, I used pencil, thinking to erase everything wrong and making it perfect.  It was on ruled paper with the red line for a margin on the left hand side.  It is easy to feel creative when what is objectionable on the paper can be replaced with something real and beautiful.

I was a child whose hands could not span the space of the keys on a computer, or, even on a typewriter.  I was, nonetheless excited about writing something called a “story” or what is called “fiction.”  It was a simple story about going home after school.

It didn’t even take up for than a page, and I was “skipping lines,” or, as is the computer-speak, I was “double-spacing.”  I loved the story.  It was fun for me to write about one of the things that always made me happy….  And excited.   It was about home.  It was about change of time.  It was about having the control for myself to decide that I’d be leaving school and walking home.  It felt like I was making the decision.  It felt like the absolute right thing to do.

I handed it in to the teacher.  She had given us class time to write it….  The idea of homework in those olden times was objectionable.  It wouldn’t be until we were at least in grade five or six that there would be an hour of homework a night  and sorts of projects that parents were supposed to help out with.

We didn’t know what our teacher would really do with the stories, but, surprise, the next day, she returned them to us, fully marked with red pen and encouraging words written to support all the markings.  She told us to bring them home for our parents to read!  We were completely excited.  At least I felt like that, as I had always loved books and the stories that teachers read out loud to us, and story tellers told us.

In addition to the sweet,  sweet, chance to have my mom read it and tell me she loved it, was the chance the teacher surprised a few of us with.  Myself and three others were asked to read our stories out loud to the rest of the class!  I was in “Writer’s Heaven!”  Not only did I have the satisfaction of writing something fictional….  But I was going to have people hear (and if I included my teacher, people would read) my work, and I would have the glow of feedback.  These were my friends.  These were my peers.  And….  It was like an International Juried Fiction Prize had been awarded with the authority of my teacher all over the page I wrote!

At this age, I was not a good speller.  And, truly, it was not always the first thought on my mind.  Nonetheless, I knew what the words were. even though they were mis-spelt, so there was no difficulty in creating understanding when I read it out loud.  However, from this high and excitement of class, and then going home, I had quite a great fall.  I showed my mom the page, and she praised me for the work, creating agreement between my mom’s and my teacher’s points of view.  My mom even asked me to read it out loud….  And just like in class, I read it out loud.

We handily clipped this precious page to the fridge.  My pride swelled.  And, now, I was waiting for my dad to get home, and see it too!

As soon as I heard my dad unlock the door and come into the foyer, I happily ran to greet him.  He was excited to see me too!  I quickly told him to go look at the fridge and read my work!!!!

Within minutes, he called to me to come into the kitchen.  “Elissa,” he said, “Do you know something?”  And I was confused, and shook my head as a “No.”

“Well,” my dad said, “I think you have made a spelling mistake…  In fact two spelling mistakes!”

I confusedly shook my head…  “It looks like you don’t know how to spell ‘Arthur’ or ‘light’, “my dad said.”  “Arthur” was our dog’s name, and I had mis-spelled  “streetlight.”  My dad continued, “It is not perfect.  So, the ‘A+++’ your teacher gave you is not real…  You only made an ‘A’.”

My disappointment was great.  I think even at that time, when I was so young, I already thought of myself as a writer.  I was sure that I would always write.  I took a deep breath, and swallowed up my pride, being unable to try to counter argue with my dad.

Even now, when I am so lucky to have ‘Spell Check’ and an ability to read dictionaries, I find the need to double check all my spellings very important.  Sometimes, I nonchalantly disregard the highlighted red markings on the computer screen, but, I am never truly satisfied until I have “fixed” the spelling.

Another Story From Being In London, England

Posted on by

2

We were in the small, but prosperous part of London, as tourists who find everything is new, unusual, and frighteningly expensive.  We felt it was somehow familiar, yet, the crampness of the streets, and the way they would suddenly turn or just end at a roundabout made us fearful of becoming lost.  We held on tightly to our maps….  This was the time before GPS truly existed, let alone being able to log into one on a mobile phone.

It was day, and soon it was becoming evening and dinner time.  We were tired, but we felt safe enough to wander further from each other, and we almost became single, unattached tourists, wandering alone.  It was becoming increasingly crowded…. something that must be typical in London, in the part of the Entertainment District that is populated by theatres, clubs, restaurants of style rather than substance, and stores selling things that require second mortgages on your principal home.

I began to be drawn to shop windows filled with mannequins in chic and trendy dresses, the best colours, and made for those size zero petites.  In my mind I knew I would soon lose track of my friends, as they were drawn to the other side of the street, which, like many of the streets around there, would suddenly turn or end in a square where several streets would all intersect.  There were shops lining the square too, and we could easily not notice each other at all despite the proximity of each other.

As I wandered in random directions that my sense of direction suggested, I soon found myself on a street where steel railings lined the space between the broad sidewalks and the road the cars drive on.  People on the sidewalk were already pressing against the portable, temporary fences as they lined up three or four deep. The biggest and most pleasant surprise about the sight of this situation, was the fact that I was wandering down the middle of the two sides of fenced-in road.  It was startling.  The first thing that happened was that my face flared red in embarrassment, but despite the instantaneous dawning of understanding, nobody else seemed to notice.

All of a sudden, my friend’s voice was by my ear, in a tone slightly louder than normal human speech, he said, “I think we are on the red carpet!”

My head swivelled around in almost 360 degrees, and yes, it definitely looked like we were on a red carpet, despite the fact that it was only asphalt beneath our feet.

No one was cheering.  In fact more people were not even facing the centre road, where, with nothing there, they would have to gaze at the other side of people, also gazing back at them.  This incongruous situation with the fact that there were police officers on the inside of the railings in yellow reflective jackets and tall, bobby helmets, made me alarmed at first, but I soon re-awoke my senses and answered my friend.

“How did we get in here?!”  My friend looked at me in amazement.  Obviously, we both did not know how we had wandered into the centre of London, England where everyone would stare at us.

We did not spend any more time lingering on this “red carpet.”  We obviously could just walk back through the direction we came in…  which we did.  As we backed out, the people started thinning and my friend walked up to one side of the fences.  At first I had no idea what he wanted, but then I saw him ask a young woman what the fencing and red carpet was about.

“We’re waiting for Brad Pitt!”

We both came away completely awed by where we were.  It was opening night in London, England for Brad Pitt’s movie, “Snatch,” directed by Guy Ritchie.  My friend and I started debating the issue.  Should we stay and catch a glimpse of Brad Pitt and the rest of the cast, or should we go and satisfy our hunger and have a nice dinner?

I couldn’t resist, so I took a picture of two of the bobbies standing by the railings, and, by chance, a woman was walking through close by as well.  The photograph looks like a picture of the woman, in fact, although, in reality she is no one famous.

We left the centre of attraction quite quickly after this.  We found our other two friends, wandering close by.  Despite our surprising story about the red carpet, none of us were tempted enough to stand by and try our chances of getting close enough to Brad Pitt for a handshake, autograph signing, or even a picture.  We were fans, but, we were also very aware and conscious of not being in a circle in downtown London, England that hounds the royalty of Hollywood.

We walked away from the way we came, and soon found a trendy sushi restaurant on the second floor of a two story building.  We overate and over drank and stayed till closing.  At the time, I did not know, or give a lot of thought about this particular night of our travel.  It is surprising to me now, that this is one of the clearest memories I have of our time in London.Image

Where All the Best Things Are

Posted on by

0

Image“The Tate Gallery of Modern Art in London, England, is a very large, and brand new, place to find some of the best art that the Western Civilization has created starting from the beginning of the twentieth century.  The building itself was built in the late twentieth century, when people were looking towards a bright future with big prospects and great returns on the interest in art.”

The docent continued her fluid speech about the gallery and was beginning to explain why some art was in the gallery and yet, others, were not.  My attention began to wonder towards the five storey high ceiling of the foyer that we were standing in to listen to the group talk.

We were very near to the first glimpse of the art inside.  There was a bronze cast spider standing on the ground floor, and it stood at full height up to three or four storeys up.  It was brilliantly beautiful.  And because of the firing that the bronze must have undergone, the dark, hard, brown bronze molded into thin ridges and cords throughout the spider’s body and legs, was the texture of a spider ready to jump, or spin, or bend fully, and land right on top of anyone walking under it.  I stepped away from the group, telling myself this would not be my final decision, so, I would quickly take the picture of this spider and run back to join the rest of the tour.

Getting close to it, I felt covered by the size and the body.  There was a bronze-molded bag underneath it, and inside were diaphanous balls that were the spider’s eggs.  It felt like being inside a tunnel, except the cement hardness was replaced with muscle, strength, and an organic beauty that lacks in grey and dim tunnels.  I was mesmerized, and took care to focus my camera and take the pictures.

When I turned around to look for the group, they had walked away and beyond.  I felt slightly let-down, but soon gave up on re-joining again.

I began to wander towards the stairs and the elevator, as obviously, some of the more beloved work were on the higher floors.  The triumph of the Tate is in its grandiosity.  It is large.  It is a monster.  And it is impressive.  Without purposely studying the directory, I decided to go up to the third floor.  The elevators were as impressive.  Shiny, mirror-like, and enclosing.

Off the elevator, there was just as much open concept space as there was downstairs.  I walked towards the centre of the building.  This high up, there were glass walls built around in a square, which was on the first storey.  I looked out and down, and saw the foyer and the many ant-sized people below.  Everything was on the inside, and yet, it was completely a self-sustaining eco-systerm.  The Tate Modern is a life-force in and of itself.

Turning to face some of the art, the first thing I saw was a Rodin sculpture.  A man, but not “The Thinker.”  Posed and sitting, but not of “The Kiss” fame.  It was a greeting before entering into one of the exhibition rooms.  It was large….  Which at the time I saw it, was not something I knew about Rodin sculptures.  The men, and the women, are taller, thicker, darker, and wiser than the average human being.  They see more, they think more, they feel more, and they look like they can say more too.  In any case, I found myself telling myself that this particular sculpture could not compare with what I had seen and knew of European Sculptures.  Those that adorn fountains and entrances to great palaces.  There is a very great physical movement in those copper and marble pieces.  But, now, as I understand, there is a lack of the wisdom that Rodin could bring forth in a Bronze.

As I turned yet again, there were paintings.  Bright, laughing, full of life paintings made of nothing but colour and the size of a brush.  This was also one of the first times I had seen something so beautiful that was not a drawing of something recognizable.  As I looked….  I am guessing that if a reporter were looking at me, he would say that I was staring, at these masterpieces that could fill two walls of space.  In any case, as I looked, I could not but overhear the voices of a couple becoming louder and louder as they were most obviously in a disagreement.  It was puzzling…  A relationship is difficult enough, but to come to a public place where people find enlightenment, to work out differences and irreconcilable questions about a partnership, is creating a bigger difficulty.  Probably one that the police and a judge would find in the favour of the Crown.

The woman could not understand why the man wouldn’t help her.  He countered that what she was pursuing was useless and of no help whatsoever.  They were centering on the issue of equality and whether anything that they had was fair and equal.  It was dizzying listening to the two of them counter and counter each other.  By this time, their voices were loud and carrying, and other patrons of the Tate were beginning to outwardly shush them.  I saw one of the security guards, in full uniform, approach them.  He put out his arm forcefully, and said sternly, and loudly, that they must keep their voices down and that if they wanted to continue, they would have to leave the Gallery.

Confronted by authority, and the agreement of the general public, the couple started walking, while in overly whispered voices they continued to address each other.  Soon, they were on the elevator, I gather, to go down, and the doors closed on them, forever taking them away from anyone here.

The rest of the Tate, of which I have seen only a small percentage, is absolutely just as beautiful and worth the cost of the building, of which the entrance fee is but the smallest infinitissimal price.  My thought, coming from that day, is to find life as attractive as the art, if not entirely to be as enraptured as the couple that so heatedly exchanged avowals with each other.

Sitting in Garden Court All By Myself

Posted on by

0

Today, I had many things to do, but there was one big break in between it all.  I spent it sitting in the Mall nearby, slurping up a Frappacino… one of my favorite drinks, especially if there is Strawberry Creme in the ice.

While I was there, among so many people all there with other people, I penned, two quick poems.  I have a teacher right now who swears that a poem tells a story without the words telling the story.  By the time the whole poem is read, she claimed, that it is the saturation of myth, theme, and character that fills up the whole story from beginning, to middle, to end.  So, to possibly suffer from any discouraging criticism, I am entering the poems here.  The poems are just my thoughts on things that have happened this past week.  I will not divulge names, or relations, but, yes, the events or feelings described, actually happened.  Please be kind!  🙂

 

Time to Hope for Life

 

A whiskey sour ruins the bourbon

Spicy ground beef fills the wrap shell

Some cheese and onions crusted

On fresh bread that took too long

 

The morning is perfect for something

The weight in my stomach concurs

It is likely that I am too rushed

To let the plastic bag go or my wish to fly

 

Dear time, stealer of moments and fun

Wait for me when it is the end

The sound of the seconds rushes

And I fall, the trance intense.

 

Marble pleases and we wonder why

Smooth, cold, and heavy

It breaks in large cracks

Pieces beyond dust that fill the puzzle

Creating beauty that is imagined by God.

 

The wetness of a drop of water spreads

Like a film of oil, the dampness creates cold

No smell, no taste, the quietest whisper muffled

Until the dog comes in from the rain.

 

In the Moment of Heat

 

The noise of loud swearing

The hallmark of anger

Smashes the air

The fingers pointing

At the sky

At you

At the point being made

 

Unheard in the haze

Of tears

Of forgotten reasons

And some loose emotions

Of mine

Against your words

The cup of the hot water is thrown

And the door slammed shut.