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That old familiar August restlessness is building inside me. My left leg is aching and stiff. I am in between. At turns hot, then sweaty, always uncomfortable. Then this skin is too tight, too white, too freckled, too stretched. Too much and not enough. It's enough.
It's time. Thinking about the now, the layers of past that arch up and up, carrying me higher into the sky, into the future. Like scales on a reptile, shiny and incomprehensible, the past is all connected, all separate. Distinct. Necessary. Remembering and memory are not the same thing. One summer day, backyard, clothesline, no job, stuck with parents, but full of knowledge that things would work out. Just ... not the knowing how to make things work. Deciding not to force things. Let things happen. They happened. I happened. I could be happy in the not knowing, not secure, not 'you'll be set with a job, a mate, a house, a fence, a pension' mindset.
I sat in my old adirondack chair, put together by new love, worn by weather and wind, drinking tea, and painting bad watercolour images of clouds and trees. One day, I almost got up, walked through the gate and left. Left everything behind, the half full cup of tea resting on the arm of the chair, the silent screeching of my mother wafting through every open window and door to sting my skin, always tender to her imperiousness, the stuff accumulated over years, the violin lessons, the books, the waiting, the wanting. Mostly, the waiting, the lull, the absence of motion, the force that pinned me to the chair. Without gravity I could have floated away without fault. It was in my eyes to leave. Mom spiralled around, annoying me, making sure I was not leaving, something new and strange about her to my adult eyes.
Forks in roads. No signposts, or else everything is written in nonsense. Maybe I have forgotten how to read the signs. Left or right, right or left, it really doesn't matter. East or West is a better selection, makes my ears ring. My fingers swell, rings get stuck, my throat closes, slowly. A cool breeze, a milky sky, stars are too bright, things are too exposed, it's stuffy inside. The air moves, but doesn't come inside. It doesn't want to. Even the ceiling fan is listless. Everything is trying to settle back into stillness.
Not the same as silence.
It's time. Thinking about the now, the layers of past that arch up and up, carrying me higher into the sky, into the future. Like scales on a reptile, shiny and incomprehensible, the past is all connected, all separate. Distinct. Necessary. Remembering and memory are not the same thing. One summer day, backyard, clothesline, no job, stuck with parents, but full of knowledge that things would work out. Just ... not the knowing how to make things work. Deciding not to force things. Let things happen. They happened. I happened. I could be happy in the not knowing, not secure, not 'you'll be set with a job, a mate, a house, a fence, a pension' mindset.
I sat in my old adirondack chair, put together by new love, worn by weather and wind, drinking tea, and painting bad watercolour images of clouds and trees. One day, I almost got up, walked through the gate and left. Left everything behind, the half full cup of tea resting on the arm of the chair, the silent screeching of my mother wafting through every open window and door to sting my skin, always tender to her imperiousness, the stuff accumulated over years, the violin lessons, the books, the waiting, the wanting. Mostly, the waiting, the lull, the absence of motion, the force that pinned me to the chair. Without gravity I could have floated away without fault. It was in my eyes to leave. Mom spiralled around, annoying me, making sure I was not leaving, something new and strange about her to my adult eyes.
Forks in roads. No signposts, or else everything is written in nonsense. Maybe I have forgotten how to read the signs. Left or right, right or left, it really doesn't matter. East or West is a better selection, makes my ears ring. My fingers swell, rings get stuck, my throat closes, slowly. A cool breeze, a milky sky, stars are too bright, things are too exposed, it's stuffy inside. The air moves, but doesn't come inside. It doesn't want to. Even the ceiling fan is listless. Everything is trying to settle back into stillness.
Not the same as silence.