I descended to the trail with a bag of surprises, hopeful one of the squirrels of the local squadron by the creek would come down from the trees. 42° struck me as wildly warm. The sunlight was diaphanous as it penetrated the fluffy clouds. As soon as I poured the surprise onto the transformer the squirrel made two heroic and timed leaps from way up into the tree onto the surface. I stepped back so it could feast. It didn’t disappoint me. The squirrel stuffed its face ferociously. In less than 2 minutes, it had consumed and/or packed its mouth with every last morsel.
Why it made me happy? I don’t know. When I last lived in Springdale, I wasn’t nice to the squirrels because they destroyed everything. I think I’ve exceeded my karma for them in the last couple of years. I leave peanuts and food out for them and if they chew things they’re not supposed to, I replace them or fix them. As I walked away, the squirrel nimbly ascended back to the treetops. I finished my break and went back to work.
I wanted to do something at work, a something that included everyone. Christmas is upon us after all. My first idea originated with finding pictures of everyone when they were younger. I mostly succeeded and especially enjoyed a few that were very difficult to find. Erika prompted me to do something more ornate… which also coincides with my innate tendency toward ostentatious. It took on a life of its own. I loved the reactions of people who were tickled by both the display and the delight of seeing people differently than they had before. A reminder that we are not simply workers and that each of us has a road behind us. Each of us has our own idea of what Christmas means. I would trade it all if everyone substituted in its place a year-long effort to surprise people with small gifts and small affections. And yes, even pictures that make some people cringe at the way they once looked.
I looked at my Christmas column filled with pictures after I turned the warehouse lights off this morning to observe the brilliant color where such color is usually absent. A column of interconnected people. It might as well have been a tapestry of everyone on the planet.
I thought to myself, “I made that!” I took an idea and added a little work and made it a reality.
Driving around in the dark in an unfamiliar place on a cold December morning was an adventure and quite unsettling. My front tire pressure was a little low; when I stopped in an attempt to air it up, the valve cap wouldn’t turn. I proceeded onward with my Santa surprise into Farmington. Santa never lets a fatigued reindeer slow him down, so it seemed imperative that I continue my quest. That was the plan, anyway. The roads had other plans. I’m sure my Google Maps location history looks like a fifth-grader drew it with a penchant for circularity. As I found my way into the target neighborhood, it occurred to me that I was indeed behaving suspiciously. I laughed and crept up to the house in question and attempted to leave the Xmas surprise as quietly as I could. My laugh was a bit loud in the quiet, still group of houses. Though it wasn’t as loud as my hyperactive imagination led me to believe, I might as well have been clanging an old discordant set of cymbals outside the house. A light came on a couple of houses down. Adding to my suspicious demeanor, I jogged back down to my car, which I had left two houses down. I imagined the owner of the light calling the police: “There’s a brightly colored clown car on the street, and whoever is driving it is jogging around and laughing!”
Familiar streets were a welcome sight as I made my way back home!
Merry Christmas, Leigh. And Merry Xmas to everyone else, too.
Give anyone behaving suspiciously a moment to do their thing. Sometimes the weirdos bring gifts.
Love, X
PS The picture is a designated Hug Zone I established at work. It’s obvious that many people aren’t getting the USDA-recommended number of quality hugs they need to be happy. .
Though it was cold and blustery after work, I walked alongside the store and around the back. I walked too fast down the steep concrete culvert. The leaves slipped under my feet and reminded me that I couldn’t fly. Had I fallen into the dirty water, I would have laughed. It wouldn’t have affected my day. My victory was that I resisted jumping from the lip of the culvert to the cart; I wanted to.
Although the picture contains garbage, it was a moment of beauty for me. A single bird flew to the broken fence and hollered toward me. I took out my phone to take a picture. The bird flew above me and away.
I don’t blame anyone for seeing only garbage. That’s where the observer in us filters what we see. The blue of the discarded shopping cart sitting derelict in the water was much more vibrant than it appeared.
The day started with sublimated subduedness for me. I’m not accustomed to that.
The 21st is the shortest day of the year for us.
I look out the window, past my cat atop the cat castle, and see the purplish-hued prism swinging in the wind. Behind it, the sun already sliding below the horizon.
When I went to the square, I got there early. There was only one street musician setting up to play. I dropped some money in his case and asked him if I could sing Feliz Navidad with him. “Hell yes, you can!” And so it came to pass as he played his guitar artfully, he sang the bilingual version while I accompanied him purely in Spanish. None of my co-workers, both current and past, had yet arrived.
Sometimes, getting there early makes all the difference.
For reasons I can’t explain, I think I will always remember standing there near the inside corner of the Fayetteville square on a weird, warm December evening. Singing.
I stopped at the inconvenience store on the way home. The Nepali clerk was stocking the lottery scratch-off rolls. She had one loose one left that she didn’t want to place loosely in the holder. “Do you want it?” she asked. “No,” I initially replied. But then I realized I should tempt fate. “How much is it?” I asked. “$10 dollars.” Hmmm. “Well, okay, let’s tempt fate. Maybe this will be one of those stories of coincidence.” The guy behind me said, “That would be amazing!” I took it over by the self-scanner and scratched the reader strip without bothering with the top half. I won my $10 back. Though it sounds stupid, for just a moment, I had this feeling that perhaps the universe was about to open one of its rare surprise boxes for me. The clerk and the other man felt it too. We all laughed in recognition of thinking that maybe we almost witnessed a surprise.
As I headed to my car, two addicts approached, a man and a woman. I recognized the man from a previous encounter. He’s difficult to understand. They were walking a large, sweet-natured dog, which I kneeled and petted. I figured out the man wanted a cigarette, so I went inside and got them cigarettes. The woman was beyond appreciative. They moved to the side of the building to smoke. She held her back in a certain way, which I recognized as serious back pain. She’d seen better days. Her clothes were dirty, and her hair was probably a mess three days ago. But she smiled back at me, even as she seemed to understand what her male companion was saying. Though I grew up with the worst mumbler on the planet, my dad, I scarcely understood every fifth word her companion uttered. The woman looked at me again and made eye contact.
I smiled back, hoping an infusion of a bit of my energy might reach her.
You never know.
About any moment.
. . .
Earlier in the week, I received an unprovoked attack email that denigrated me with seething anger. Happy people don’t write words like those. I felt sorrow and sympathy for the author. I’m certain that the author doesn’t understand that the mere act of sending such an email telegraphs to anyone with an appreciation for human behavior and psychology that they are unhappy. Part of their motivation was to be a revisionist of the past; that’s normal, and everyone does it. People need to buttress their self-image. Revisionists are easy to spot because of their reluctance to admit wrongdoing or cast themselves in a questionable light. That’s not to say that some of what they wrote isn’t accurate! It is incomplete, however.
The other part was an attempt to silence me when I write about parts of my life that overlap. I go out of my way most of the time to avoid spilling people’s secrets or the things that they prefer to be kept hidden. Most people aren’t like me. They won’t share their warts, believing that people don’t otherwise know. This is one of the reasons I can’t be blackmailed. I’ll spill my secrets regardless of whether I need to. I’ll release nude pictures of myself after eating six Happy Meals. I don’t care. It’s hard to shame someone who willingly shares their life. I think back to dealing with some of my family, who spent years failing to dissuade me from finding out some of my family history.
As for convincing people that they have the wrong idea about me, that’s foolish. If people have only a partial story, it’s hard to blame them for listening to the person with the ax to grind. “Only the spoon knows what is stirring in the pot” is always an apt phrase to remember. As for the rest, slander is when you willfully and knowingly speak mistruths, and libel is when you write them. And if it is true? It’s neither.
It’s odd to see self-righteousness from someone who doesn’t share their full story. I don’t feel self-righteous precisely because I’m the first to say I’ve been a hypocrite. But I’m not ashamed to share the stupid things I’ve done. But I do know that I know a lot that would embarrass the hell out of people. It’s not my job to share it, nor do I want to. I write about this when I reference seeing behind so many people’s curtains.
I willingly open my curtains, even if makes you wonder if I’ve lost my damn mind.
I won’t open your curtains unless it overlaps with my story.
Go be happy.
It’s easy NOT to hear me or read my words. Change the channel, don’t look at my social media or blog, and just live a happy life.
Can opener didn’t work. Knife-as-finger-opener did! Blood splatter doesn’t go well with most Airbnbs. 🙂 All the proof you need that I’m an idiot. Note: I only sliced myself because I moved my hand out of the way. Had I left it on the can, I wouldn’t have proven Darwin right! .
This coffee cup is the one I’ve had longest. It’s from one of my two trips to Mexico decades ago. It reminds me of exotic margarita sunrises and sunsets, salt in my eyes from my first trip to the ocean, beautiful sand stuck in places all over my body, people working way too hard for too little money, tasting unlimited food and drinks I never had before. Being able to enjoy people even more because I loved their language. And trying to like shrimp made at least three dozen different ways. (I still didn’t.) When I was in Mexico, I filled this cup with a variety of drinks, “surprise me” concoctions of coffee and whatever the servers wanted me to try. One of those workers went beyond; one drink was made by a cabal of her friends, all shouting ideas. She put a 1/4 lb. sliver of homemade coffee-flavored chocolate in the cup, followed by bitter coffee and liqueur. I walked down to the darkening beach with the cup. My wife, now long absent, had a preposterous fruity drink that defied gravity.
I paid one of the resort people $20 for the cup. He reluctantly but joyously accepted it. He said I could buy a case for that amount. I told him that the cup was full of the memory of that moment. He said, “¡Eres loco pero simon!” (You’re crazy but yes!)
I’ve been leaving cups when I make special trips or when I want an on-demand lemon moment.
This morning, I walked down the leaf-covered and rain-drenched hill. I put my Mexico cup on one of the lower branches. I wanted to climb up one of the trees but these were slippery and the bark laden with water. Erika was inside cooking and preparing us a meal.
I left my Mexico cup there for future observers, a silent witness to the forest below. If this world were comprised of magic I would hope that anybody that looked at it or touched it could feel the salt and sand on their skin and that feeling of being in another world. I experienced it literally two lifetimes ago. I didn’t know at the time that those memories would be foundational for me or that life had shockingly different plans than what was in my head when I was there.
I clambered back up the hill and into house filled with bacon smells and presence.
When the Sun is at the right angle, my apartment is washed inside and out by hundreds of simultaneous prism rainbows. I leave the blinds open for the ficus tree. Sometimes Guino and I sit here in relative silence and let the colors fill the room. We both watch the beauty as it travels omnidirectionally.
Güino is with me on my lap as I did the short video of me near the window.
P.S. Parenthetically Speaking 