Near the multiple piles of brush on the perimeter of the street, I spied a white box. It was out of place, bright, and sitting as if placed there. I picked it up, expecting it to be heavy. It was light. I opened the clasp on the front and lifted the lid. Inside were a couple of dozen brightly colored notes, each written by attendees of what looked to be a baby shower. Though it might not sound sublime, it lit me up with the imaginings of a foreign life and a curiosity to know how the box found its way to be haphazardly placed where I discovered it.
I read the notes eagerly, my thoughts tied to an event and a person who I’d never meet. One was a rudimentary drawing of a swaddled baby, one probably drawn by a young child.
It was a lemon moment, one that I can’t quite describe.
I brought the little box home with me and glued the slight imperfection along the bottom. I don’t know what to do with it, other than to wonder about the life it represents and the child it celebrated.
I hope the mother is happy with her new child.
I hope.
And that makes me happy.
I’m sitting here with the apartment door open, listening to the rain and the cacophony of birds in the surrounding trees. My cat is wandering the landing, probably attempting to trespass further than he is supposed to. It’s a beautiful morning and the sun hasn’t greeted me yet.
Somewhere, the mom and the new baby associated with the box I found live their lives.
Fayetteville. There are surprises everywhere if you know where to look and how to appreciate them.
My day is closing the way it began. Almost 16 hours later, I’m walking and watching the beautiful sunset illuminate the brightly colored houses and the hidden lives they contain. It’s absolutely beautiful and transformative. My head floods with music and if I glance away and look back, the light has already morphed and changed. There are a lot of moments in life exactly like that. You enter the room of memory and although everything is familiar, nothing is the same. Impermanence is the only sure thing. Even the sun filled with hydrogen will one day exhaust itself. But for now, 30,000 steps long behind me, I feel like I have an infinite supply of appreciation. .
My heart of glass beat both brittle and warm this morning. Almost beyond my control, I found myself putting on my wireless headphones and walking to work. Despite the cold at 4 a.m. As I passed Pack Rat and the reflective pond, I looked up to see a shooting star falling and heading Northeast.
“If I had only known the last time would be the last time, I would have put off all the things I had to do…” It was pure synchronicity that the song Lynette had recommended to me was playing. Some songs resonate differently, and especially so when I’m the sole occupant of the entire trail.
I thought of Willie, Nelly, Barb and Barbara, Mike, Jimmy, Buck, Bobby Dean, and Carolyn. What they would do to be able to feel cold and their fingers tingle, looking up at the streak of illumination as it fell.
I could not hear the mockingbird but I knew it was out there, waiting for first light. My pace quickened. As the steps accumulated into the thousands, I no longer noticed the cold. I sang and whispered to the mockingbird.
My brittle heart unaccompanied on the cement path. Feeling happy. And thinking of all the people who no longer have the chance to feel the cold.
I stopped at a hardware store on Township after work. Surprisingly, it’s named “The Hardware Store,” which confused me. I definitely wanted some watercolor art prints. I was shocked and pleased that they carried oversized outlet plates AND a huge variety of screws. I am now fully screwed, I’m pleased to report.
As the clerk checked me out, he inquired about my brooch. Being where he was, he of course didn’t refer to it as a “brooch.” No self-respecting retail clerk selling manly items would ever utter the word – even under threat of a whipping.
I laughed and asked if he wanted a rundown of possible answers.
“Ha! Of course,” he said and laughed.
“It’s a pilot’s license.”
“Really,” he seriously asked.
“Yes, it allows me to indiscriminately fly the bird anytime I wish to.” And I held up both birds using both hands to demonstrate.
Not expecting that, he laughed hard.
I listed a barrage of other explanations, some funny, some bizarre.
I’ll go back. Not just for the great supply of items, but also to test their credulity and sense of humor.
What is Pretxel Fish? Arkansas’ newest LLC. Due to the craziness of my name, Arkansas had trouble understanding that my first name is just X. I used the ongoing bureaucratic melee as a reason to replace the ‘z’ in ‘pretzel’ with an X. If ‘xylophone’ can be pronounced with an X, anything can. (One of my favorite words is ‘xanthous,’ which has acquired new meaning lately.) What is Pretzel Fish, the name from which I derived my company name? A reminder to be grateful and to experience whatever is at your feet. Not the potential of what could be or what you’d like to be. You can make moves to change your life incrementally or you can adapt and find lemon moments where you are. It’s up to you and me. I’m not sure what I will do with this new business. And that lights me up a little with both humor and expectations.
As I drove past the bus station in the early morning, I noted a young man standing with a throng of people waiting to board the long, modern bus. He wore what appeared to be a tophat. I laughed. He’s either optimistic or weird. I wanted to chat with him and see how funny he might be. But he was a stranger standing in a way station parking lot, on the way to one of an infinite series of destinations. The quirky word ‘sonder’ came to mind as it often does.
We all are, though, even though we might not even know where we’re going. Each of us could sharply turn on a whim. That’s the conundrum of our lives. We c-o-u-l-d wake up today and choose something markedly different. We won’t though, mainly because we are obstinate in our continuation of the same. Even if the arc we’re traveling doesn’t suit us, most likely our choice will be along the ellipsis of what we chose yesterday. There’s comfort in that. The obverse of comfort is that new choices could render new ways to be happier.
We could laugh at the stupid things that will happen to us today. Some of us will have car accidents. Some will sit across from the doctor and hear unexpected diagnoses. Others will lose their jobs or start new ones. Loved ones will leave us, people will disappoint us. Yes, others will delight us, and humor will surprise us.
Meanwhile, the young man stands in the bus station parking lot wearing a tophat. I know I love finding meaning in things that are random. It seems like a metaphor to me, though. I can’t shake it. I’ll have another cup of coffee and ponder the sonder of all of us.
A couple of social media friends inadvertently asked me to do something hilarious with the original photo. Instead, I had a moment imagining the morning. This is what I wrote and created:
The “Wake up!” shouted in her dream brought her instantly to consciousness. She stared at the small red aura of the clock in her peripheral vision for a few seconds.
It had been her own voice in her dream. She drove with her companion as he hung his head out the window, smelling the water and watching the scenery pass. She fumbled with her phone long enough to snap a picture of the moment. In her dream, she experienced a series of overlapping moments, each one of her through the course of her life. The last one was a picture she’d happily snapped one hundred and twenty-three days ago. She slowed the car as she came to a stop. The images flowed backward across time, carrying her from adulthood back to her infancy. The reversal repeated, bringing nostalgia and appreciation for the moment – and for all the moments she’d lived.
As the dream faded and its grip loosened, she wondered what it meant and what the day might hold. She smiled secretly as she lay in the shadows of the morning.
The rain started at 2:59 a.m. I heard it approach in a crescendo as it moved through the trees toward me. An hour later, I sat on the plant bench watching the lightning illuminate the sky in bursts of violet purple-blue. Thunder rolled languorously as occasional cars passed by. I would have loved to sit there until sunrise at 7:09. My shorts were still damp from walking in the rain. It was 67 degrees when I spontaneously decided to take a barefoot walk around the neighborhood cut-through. It was a beautiful little walk as the rain pelted me and refreshed me. I’ll go inside now as the thunder grows in intensity and the lightning strikes become more pronounced. Not because it makes me nervous, but because I must yield to the day. Reluctantly. .
Summer gallops toward us. My metal front door already reached 156 F this afternoon. Last summer, it reached over 180. It catches the sun directly. It’s great for my solar lanterns and lights but makes me wonder when the wall might ignite in a fiery burst. The previous door was wooden until I moved in. The occupant had made the front door unusable too. That amuses me. What level of hooliganism must one exercise to render a door unusable? My childhood provides fodder for the ‘how.’
I bought Subway to eat. I still had a slew of coupons to use. The problem? I didn’t know they expired on my birthday until I ordered. To counterbalance my self-amusement and chagrin, I tipped the two workers in cash, surprising them. Jessica gave me a bottle of thai chili sauce and I drowned half of my sandwich in it, letting it run down across my hands and face as I stood outside in the warmth of the full sun, the sandwich precariously perched on the railing. Güino of course kept me company out there while I ate. He then tricked me and darted past me to the neighbors, where he proceeded to peer into the low window and meow at the cat occupants of the apartment. As I prodded him back toward my apartment with my foot, he had a lot to say to me in protest.
Earlier, hundreds of birds accumulated in the brush and unmaintained trees behind the apartment simplex. Their chirping roar was loud and beautiful. It gave me the idea to put a 15′ feeder pole outside my bedroom window. Lord knows the screen will never be fixed so moving it aside to fill the feeder won’t be a problem. Of course, I will paint it a garish vivid color, one befitting a person dedicated to swathing everything in polychrome.
An uncle of mine died this week. Amusingly, we called him Poor Bob. He was a plain-spoken, opinionated, and humorous man. He needed all those qualities to be married to my Aunt Marylou. It’s okay that I pick on her. She’s heard it all at least two times in her long lifetime. She’s the origin of my quip, “Every family needs an Aunt Marylou to get things done.” She’s been the de facto matriarch of the family since grandma Nellie died.
I’m sitting at my computer, facing the sun as it penetrates the poorly-closed blinds of the window. Shadows play across the bottom. The cat sitting on the extra-wide sill I installed below them provides a little motion as he moves and arcs his back against them. I left the back window open for him when I left early this morning. He’s had a full day of sun and warmth.
I filled the hummingbird feeder because I’m an optimist.
I’m going to make a cup of bitter coffee and stand on the landing as I drink it. Sunset isn’t until 7:35. If I do it right, that hour will seem languid and filled with countless thoughts. Some hours are much longer than others, just as some embraces are more fiery and soulful.
It’s not that this location is beautiful, but sometimes the light shimmers on surfaces and provides the perfect backdrop for contemplating.
I’ll look at pictures later, searching for those who’ve stepped away. It’s the least I can do, to remember. Even to experience a small moment. Most of our lives are these moments.
A special message for today, written on a 2′ x 3′ container lid.
Yes, the word “mofo” still amuses me.
As I amused myself with this sign, I listened to my downstairs neighbor rage and scream for several minutes. I went out to the landing and stairs and recorded a little bit of it. I hope he is not screaming at his very young daughter again. That kind of behavior at 4 a.m. signals that he is out of control. It wouldn’t be better to listen to it at 2 p.m. but it somehow is much worse at this hour. He’s the one some of us call “Shirtless Guy,” because he goes shirtless when all evidence clearly indicates that he should not, at least from the standpoint of “things people want to see.”
I hear the train whistle in the distance. It will soon approach, roaring past. As loud as it is, it’s one of the things that is endearing about living in this area. As for the volume, it’s no louder than my mom, whose voice cut could through the apocalypse. Trains connect me to my childhood past, parts that are worth remembering. My grandpa used to tell me stories about jumping trains, even as my grandma Nellie would holler at him: “Woolie, stop telling him those stories!” I wish grandpa had lived a few more years to tell me stories I could remember. As for the train tracks, if you touch the rails, you’re connected to 140,000+ miles of them across the United States. I love that idea.
The train horn grows loud.
The day grows near.
The neighbor is silent.
Good morning, mofos. I wish you could experience how it makes me feel to recall sitting on the wooden porch swing next to grandpa.
