My cousin gave me a leather jacket that belonged to her brother Barry. Normally, I don’t wear such nice things because, well, I’m me and I often don’t know whether I’ll end up in a branchy tree or a creek.
As I was paying at the inconvenience store, a woman behind me told me that she loved the leather jacket and missed seeing them. Her husband loved leather jackets. He passed away a few years ago. I asked her what kind of cigarettes he smoked and she brightened up with a smile. She asked me how I knew he smoked. So I told her that it was almost a federal law that such nice leather jackets required the wearer to emulate James Dean or the icons of the past, all of whom smoked.
As she laughed, I asked her to tell me a funny story about her husband. Her smile grew even wider and I knew my personal question had opened a memory doorway in her head.
She didn’t hesitate:
“He often said that he couldn’t go out without a leather jacket. Whether it was church, a family dinner, or a quick trip to the store, he would often forget his keys or wallet, but never his leather jacket. When one of our nephews got married, the bride-to-be asked him to remove it for a photo after the reception. The nephew laughed and told his new wife that this wasn’t how we do things in the family. The leather jacket was an official member of the family. Luckily, she agreed and said as long as my husband bought her a leather jacket, it was okay with her. She forgot all about it. But a year later, he bought her and his nephew both leather jackets. It became a running joke.”
She told the story with more detail and definitely with more humor.
When she saw me in the leather jacket, she was not simply looking at a jacket. To her, it was a nostalgic reminder of her one love in life. She was still smiling when I left. I attempted to act cool as I popped up the collar. It made me smile too.
I’m not the supernatural sort most of the time. Getting to my new place in the creek, I deviated and went through the place I used to live in Johnson. Somehow, it slipped my mind for a while that two of the biggest events in my life took place less than 40 ft apart. Totally unconnected except by location. Both involving death. It’s strange how my mind blurs the mountain of coincidences that resulted from both. When I drove by on my way to the creek, none of that was on my mind. Then the cascade of simultaneous memories and coincidences cloaked me. I’ve mentioned before that I experience odd cycles of coincidences. At times it feels like it was another person living through them. Someone shared a video earlier of a woman who had a particularly bizarre string of coincidences. I know that we all unintentionally string together connections where there aren’t any. But for any of you who have run into a matrix of events, people, and places, maybe you know what I’m talking about. If you do, please share with me what I’m trying to say. (That last part made me laugh.) When I first arrived here, a dad and his young son were fishing upstream. To give them quiet, I went way too far down the road and then cut through the foliage. Even Chuck Norris would have winced at the terrain and the infinite number of sharp, unexpected stones. Even for my tough feet, I let out more than one curse. Sitting on a high bank in the middle of the river with my feet immersed in the cold water and inundated with the loud bubble and sounds of the creek makes me feel like I’m suspended in time. Because I probably am subconsciously. It’s still early enough in fall for there to be butterflies and dragonflies darting about. Every couple of minutes, a random bird will fly over me and below the overhang canopy of trees; if I sit motionless, some of them are within two feet of my head as they pass. I guess my wildly colored dashiki shirt looks natural in the clear water. X
A while back, my cousin met me briefly on the way to somewhere else and she gave me a box full cassette tapes, most of which I had made for her decades ago. I took them out several times and looked at the titles and the colored labels that I made back in the day. It brought back a tremendous number of memories for me. Both for the music and the way I had shared it with people. Making cassettes and VCR tapes was one of the ways I helped my mom keep her sanity. Even when she was being argumentative and impossible, the movies, music, and music videos I shared with her kept us connected.
It had been my intention to take them to work and listen to them using an old stereo with a cassette deck. I still have most of the music digitally. Except for perhaps the Looney Toons Christmas music. I put the box in my trunk yesterday.
I’m glad I forgot to take them inside.
When I went to wade the creek today, I followed yesterday’s pattern and went somewhere different. I parked in the apartments near the Agri perimeter. I walked across the wide expanse of lawn, crossed the trail, and walked a different section of the creek. On the way out, I climbed the beautiful tree near the apartments. Most people passing through that section of the trail have noticed the huge trunks that extend horizontally to the ground before pushing back upward. I climbed higher than I should, but I just muttered to myself, “Time is short,” and went up anyway. It was beautiful and the breeze was refreshing.
When I got out of the tree, though I was barefoot, I walked along the protective cyclone fence next to the apartments. A man was sitting outside his apartment listening to music. I don’t know why I approached him. The offer of the box of cassettes in my trunk passed from my lips. He laughed. He said, “Yes, of course! I will give anything a listen.” We talked for a minute and I asked him to wait so that I could walk back to my car and retrieve the box. When I returned, he flipped open the box and smiled. He noted that I had individually decorated and indexed each cassette.
Luckily, he did not pull out very many cassettes. When I went to the car, I put a $20 bill under the cassettes. I also wrote a very short note on one of my infamous index cards: “Thanks for appreciating a returned piece of my past.” I don’t know what he might make of it. But I could tell by the look on his face from just seeing how I had decorated the tapes that he knew it had been a huge part of my life at one point.
It took a long series of coincidences for me to have the box at the perfect time and place. And to find someone who was obviously interested in giving them new life. I owe it in part to deciding to visit new places along the creek. And to my cousin for returning them to me.
I parked my car and walked barefoot down the trail. I knew I needed an unfamiliar spot today. So I walked much longer than I intended, passing people who took second glances at my bare feet and rolled up pants. It seemed as if they looked more frequently than they had yesterday when I had a billowing (but wet) blue cape on my back. I encountered a dirt path mostly hidden in the trees. Not knowing where it led and not caring either way, I followed it. It led down to the creek and I followed the stones and sat on one of the protruding ledges, sticking my feet deep into the rocks and mud under the water.
The cascade and babble of the water combined with the cloud cover and bird song had to have been aligned and created just for me at this moment.
Three years later and I still wrestle with whether the bell which sounded in my head on an October morning was correlation or causation regarding my brother’s death. My ex-wife would roll her eyes and attribute it to sheer craziness. No matter what the cause or how much my brother’s death affected me subconsciously, something in me broke. The breaking left me with a profound certainty of several things. And most of it was the realization that excuses and rationalizations are easy. The bell in my head brought both joy and pain. My new confidence brought consequences I hadn’t expected. Part of which had to be arrogance. It taught me the definition of limerence and of the meaninglessness of intentions compared to consequences. But it also taught me that most of my limitations are self-imposed. All I need is an idea, even more than motivation. Motivation and willpower are for procrastinators. If you get in motion or set things in motion, it is amazing what simple routine consistency will give you.
Since I was not familiar with this part of the creek, I walked carefully, even through the deeper pockets of clearwater. Countless lightning fast crawdads faced me as I approached, only to flutter backwards so quickly that it was impossible to see them move. There’s always a chance for snakes, but none made their appearance.
The weather is going to shift soon. The days will be colder and likely result in the pads of my feet softening again. I’ll continue to come out here for a while no matter how cold the air or water is. It’s impossible to argue with nature.
The brother of my youth would have loved to be here. It’s true that he probably would have picked me up over his head and thrown me into one of the deep pockets of water. Or we might have even had a rock fight, him promising to not pelt me in the head. Given his size advantage, had he been careless in his aim, there’s not much I could have done about it. We used to spend a lot of time out in the fields having dirt clod fights. It sounds archaic and crazy to anyone who didn’t experience the agony and ecstasy from both ends of a nicely sized dirt-clod bashing someone unexpectedly in the neck or chest. We didn’t invent the rules. They’ve been handed down for generations among kids growing up and playing with the things at their disposal.
Having said the above, if my brother were here today, there is no question that he would look me dead in the eye and ask, “When are you going to stop being so damn fruity?” I would reply, “Probably about the same time you smarten up and stop being an old conservative hag!” No matter how such a conversation played out, I would lose. Because if my brother couldn’t win through words, he would achieve victory by throwing either me or a table. That’s what happens when the universe mistakenly combines debate-level intelligence with a hulk of a person.
Somehow in the crucible of our shared DNA, I luckily inherited the introspective yet expressive gene. He inherited the introspective part, but all too often trapped himself in his own head. That’s the worst place for anyone of such intelligence to be.
Mike was right. Maybe I am a bit too fruity. But whether through alchemy or luck, I’m the one standing in the creek getting the last word.
Since I’m long-winded exactly like my brother, I’ll loop back to my initial causation versus correlation comment. It’s obvious to me now that the bell that rang in my head three years ago would have remained silent were it not for my brother having consequences catch up to him. Which ironically likely would have led to me having a major health setback myself.
The good and the bad may not be best friends, but they definitely sleep in the same bed.
I was wading through Scull Creek, standing in the natural sluices created by falls and narrowing rocks. The water moved with such speed that the resulting splashes against my legs created a spray that hit my face. Though it was lightly raining when I started, the rain faded, leaving an odd, somber pallor in the air. Walking barefoot in such water where I couldn’t see the stone under the water was hilariously precarious. At some point, I heard chattering above me. It took me a minute to find the source: a squirrel about six feet above me, leaning down and watching me. I talked back to it a few times as I made my way back and forth and up and down the creek. It dawned on me that the squirrel was moving in a pattern following me. When I was done in the creek, I carefully climbed the rocks back up onto the bank and picked up my sandals. The squirrel came down out of the trees and scampered ahead of me as I walked on the greenway trail. I walked past it as it sat about ten feet from the trails edge. When I turned off the trail to head to my car, I looked back to see that the squirrel had moved to be relatively close to me. By the time I made it to the parking lot edge, the squirrel ascended a tree and watched me through the corner of its eye. I chattered back at it. There was no doubt It had followed me from the creek. As I opened my car door, I looked back one more time to see that the squirrel was sitting facing me. An unusual squirrel, one probably wanting to have a polite conversation.
I walked into the E-Z Mart store with very few collected small winning lottery tickets from swinging for the fences with the impossible Megamillions and Powerball.
Instead of taking the cash, I told the clerk, “No, I’d like them back in $1 fast-play lottery tickets. I’m feeling very lucky today. I know I’m going to win.”
She laughed and smiled.
“No, I’m serious. It’s time. Remember? A plane will fall on you on a long enough timeline, and you might win the lottery.”
“Well, remember who sold them to you when you win.”
She printed off the tickets. I was shorted 3. While I was standing to the left of the register, I looked at the very first printed ticket.
Though you think I’m joking, the first line of the first ticket was a winner. Had I bought a higher denomination ticket, the amount would have been five times what I won. To think I’d have to work almost ninety hours to net that much money is preposterous.
The clerk is a believer now.
I’ve never had to file a claim form with the lottery. What I won won’t be enough to make much of a dent in my debt. But there’s no better feeling than to waste a tiny bit of money to get such a return. I haven’t gone to a casino or wasted my money gambling on anything substantive since very early 2021. Living single without a roommate and having emergency surgery tends to take the money out of your pocket.
Do you want to hear something even crazier?
I’m going to win something even bigger. I hope the work crew I throw in each week will win, just like everyone else buying tickets foolishly. I can’t imagine a better, more satisfying irony than to work like a mule for 18 years being eclipsed by something as impractical and impossible as a lottery. I’d love to look around at people and just experience the moment of incredulity. If such an impossible outcome ever happens, I’m going to need to block the work doors to prevent them from stampeding out of there.
Today, I won “a” lottery. A small one. It didn’t hurt my afternoon feelings at all.
I included a screenshot of an email I sent myself on Sept. 18th.
I walked at least quarter of a mile down the middle of the creek barefoot. It wasn’t until I hit the second thick spider web at eye level that I broke a branch off above me to wave as I walked. I felt bad for a second as soon as I hit one of the tangled webs in front of me with a stick. Two feet to one side was a lovely, thick, multicolored spider minding its own business. I broke off another leafy branch and rescued the spider to place it on the bank. Had I encountered it with my face, all thoughts of potential rescue would have been abandoned in a wild windmill of frenetic arm waving.
To say that it’s gorgeous down here in the cool water is an understatement.
I’m not supposed to express confusing emotions on social media. I mixed an errand with an early morning walk. That was my intention. But I ended up sprinting. I waited until each breath was more difficult and then my Fitbit began to alarm, flash, and vibrate. Of course I kept going. Even harder. As often happens when you’re pushing past your natural limit, I hit the void point. For those of you who’ve never experienced it, it’s very similar to being on a jet with a steep incline that suddenly pops through the clouds. When I stopped running and resumed walking, it was impossible to look at the sunrise in the same way. Stunning. There was also a tinge of melancholy. Because I wanted so badly to turn to someone with a pointed finger, “OMG. Look!” It’s possible that they might just acknowledge such an obvious observation with a nod. Mundane sights transformed are one of my secret joys. Perhaps it might not have been so beautiful had my brain not been soaked in adrenaline.
PS I included a couple from last night because the light and color was a cliché of color.
If you’re going to prank people with hidden index cards…write “3 of 7” on one of them. Even if you only leave three hidden. I give you my personal guarantee that it will never occur to them that you did not leave 7 of them. Somewhere!
I went down the deep part of the creek because of the recent rains. The passersby and the background traffic receded and conceded to the bubble and roar of the creek. I spent more than an hour down in the valley where the creek dipped and pooled. I moved almost a ton of rocks for my own amusement. I walked across the fallen tree that spanned the creek. And I tried to climb a couple of the vines hanging to the bed. Worn out, I took my shirt off and lay in the cold water – and looked up into the sky above the canopy. The sun came and went, creating shadows and rainbows atop the rock crests jutting from the water.
I needed it, a connection, even if it were the cousin of such connection, which is silence in one’s mind.
Photographic evidence of tomfoolery. My neighbors, congregated in a late-night, early-morning ongoing celebration… I hope to see or hear the effects of someone coming out and getting entangled in a 6-in wide band of clear tape as they step out onto the dark landing. If I get shot, I had a good life. Love, X .
P.S. Parenthetically Speaking 