Sitting on the landing while attempting to hold and contain my cat while drinking a cup of coffee, I had the strange sensation that if I did not get up right then and take a walk, that I might not do it again.
Within two minutes, I was out and headed north. Even though I didn’t think about it, I was headed right down the throat of daylight commerce. Except at 3:00 a.m., It’s a ghostland. Everyone is in a hurry unless they are driving to avoid detection.
When I went over the crest looking out onto the interstate interchange, the breeze hit me again. I stopped for a moment to watch the stillness and the kaleidoscope of lights. It’s not supposed to be pretty, but of course it was.
I’m in Springdale now, knowing I probably can’t walk all the way back without the risk of my legs getting wobbly. I’m not quite ready to sit down in the red rocking chair in my living room and stay there.
When I neared the crest opposite Lake Fayetteville where the Lewis and Clark building sits empty and watches, the breeze off the lake felt like salvation.
I’m going to keep going for a while. In the off chance this could indeed be the last time I take such a walk. The only reason we get through a lot of days is because we don’t know when we’re experiencing the last of something -or watching some on way now do the same.
Although I originally wasn’t feeling it, once I got out there, another late night/early morning long walk was exactly what I needed. The usual suspects were there to greet me: drunk drivers, cats skulking, possums and skunks skittering, and random dogs barking at my audacity to walk by. I probably should apologize to one group of houses because I couldn’t resist barking back so that the dog objected even louder against my presence. When I made the long loop around and back across the interstate, one dog wagged its tail in the dark and let me pet it as it sat patiently under the beautiful modern street lights along Deane.
A man sitting perfectly still next to his house on Sang Avenue made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. The house had only a few feet between it and a chain link fence bordering the sidewalk. I assume he belonged there rather than being someone who didn’t because he was sitting on something and mostly hidden by the bushes.
Totally unrelated: did you know that the circumference of your calf muscles bears a strong correlation to how long you are likely to live? It sounds like a scam but the science is there to back it up.
Did you know that the world record for a person holding their breath underwater is 24 minutes and 37 seconds? Tell me again that human beings aren’t fascinating.
Because I’m out and about at the weirdest times, I often notice patterns, even when I’ oblivious to them for a long time. It’s hard to define what looks off or weird, but once you recognize it, you pay attention, even if only in passing.
And that’s where the unavoidable urge for shenanigans started.
I mentioned the specifics to a friend, which was an error on my part. Because once I vocalized my idea, it became an imperative.
I’d noticed that people were acting suspiciously. I don’t mean the “they voted conservative” type of suspicious. Walking in zigzags, looking around way too much, and reaching on top of places that normally aren’t touched. (Unless you are a pigeon.)
It took me two times to realize that what they were retrieving was something another person was leaving in the agreed upon place. Which lead me to the conclusion that whoever was leaving the item had a line-of-sight to the spot. I’m sure they were watching from one of the apartments on either side. Since the trees have been removed in that area, visibility is much better for nefarious activity. And bird watching. I had my doubts about the bird watching.
Which meant I had to be careful. Or go in disguise. It’s not like I could drive up in my inconspicuous bright blue little car, jump out wearing my cape, and startle the participants. I thought about putting on my squirrel mask and magic cloak to avoid being identified. Instead, I put on my weird winter hat and a mask, walked calmly up to the spot, and left several notes in the place in question. I’m sure having a winter hat on in the pre-dawn heat didn’t look the least bit suspicious. After all, I’ve seen people walking the street wearing their bed blankets.
I didn’t stick around to see what happened. Not just because I had to get to work, but because while I can run fast and creatively, I’d rather not try to outrun objects traveling at high velocity.
I’ll take bets that a couple of people made some strange faces when they found the notes I left.
I was a little vague in this post – and for obvious reasons.
Even though I’ve been a little too much in my head, this shenanigan made it much better.
I’ll include pictures of the some of the notes I left for the people who need to be less obvious in their attempts to break into dubious capitalism. You have to D.A.R.E. to make a profit, after all.
Don’t ask how far over the bridge I had to hang to take this picture in low light without a flash. I snapped it at 3:33 a.m. I’m not sure why I love this picture so much. I’m still on a long walk across Fayetteville. The U of A was gorgeous with both beautiful buildings and homes surrounding it. It’s a different experience at that hour, with strategically placed lights that disappear in the day. The crescent moon watched me as I navigated through places I should not have gone thanks to the road construction on West Maple.
Because I did not plan my route, the series of hills made me breathe harder than an octogenarian watching Dancing With The Stars. When I made my way back north, the breeze was a godsend. I was sweatier than JD Vance at a La-Z-Boy auction.
Another beautiful walk. I’m not home yet because I overestimated the arc of how far south I went. The incessant buzz of insects keeps me company as I wander.
Every new shiny place I passed was originally something else. Sometimes it clicks what those buildings used to be. 10 years ago. 50 years ago. I’m not sure whether these buildings are more historical than I am.
A huge bolt of lightning shook the neighborhood shortly before 1:30 a.m. Even though it’s rare for me, I had miraculously fallen back to sleep after waking up around midnight. I was dreaming so intensely that the lightning strike seemed to have followed me out of the dream. I’m certain that one part of the dream resulted from a conversation I had yesterday when I explained that I track how many days old I am.
It’s rare for me to remember my dreams vividly. Since my sleep pattern switched a few years ago, my brain retreats to a dead place that is more akin to hibernation than sleep.
Today is my first day off work all year. It didn’t occur to me that this was the case until late last week. I decided I would make the final decision as to whether I would work when I woke up this morning. And that if I didn’t go in, I would take a ridiculously long walk. I had to wait for the storm front the mostly move away. For those of you who weren’t up at 1:30, the lightning show was amazing.
I work with several hard workers who don’t get to enjoy the incredible benefit of paid time off. Some of them are losing almost a couple of hundred dollars per pay period because we lose the hours once we are capped out at the maximum. All of us appreciate that we work for an employer with good benefits. But all of us feel the cringe of being put in a situation where we can’t enjoy it because of understaffing. Whether I should say that or not is another issue. But everyone knows that burnout is unsafe for us as individuals and as workers.
Perhaps they grind of work is training for the upcoming economic mess. There is no doubt it is coming and its tendrils will affect all but a few of us. I can picture my grandma saying, “there ain’t no belt tightening when someone has taken your belt.”
My long walk was beautiful. The strange misty glow of the early morning-late night after rain lights. The smell from the rain and the clingng heat. The empty roads that I walked down the middle of. A family of raccoons that complained as I unknowingly walked by. An unseen young woman on one of the balconies of the beautiful modern apartments flanking Gregg, as she beautifully and melodically sang a song I wasn’t familiar with, and a song probably unwelcome to the ears of the other residents. (But for me, as an accidental audience, it was perfect.) The long stretches of both hill and road. The night time summer sky billowing with retreating white clouds. The occasional person on a scooter; some of them involuntarily participating in the morning.
I hated giving up ownership of the streets. Leaving the unobserved and frozen in time houses with all the residents tucked away inside.
It’s hard to explain how rounding a corner and seeing strange orange glow of a section of road brings on the same feelings that “Something Wicked This Way Comes,” or “Stranger Things ” It’s just a stretch of road illuminated by optical illusions. But you weren’t there when I looked to my left and saw a ground light being temporarily blocked by a cat who was creeping along the edge of the driveway. It was accidental synchronicity and caused the hair on my arms to stand. I stopped to take a picture of the light. But that’s all it is. People sound a little off when they try to express how such little moments are entirely different when they are experienced.
The same is true for most of us when we listen to someone describe their dream. The narrative loses the immersive magic that held the storyteller captive while they were experiencing it.
X
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(I added the word death to the mailbox as a joke…)
…
The dream:
Instead of a tombstone, the grave was marked by a tall crystal spire. Somehow, I knew that it wasn’t an actual grave and that inside whatever what was in the ground was nothing more than a DNA sample.
The sun peeking through the trees was orange red and seemed off in a way I couldn’t precisely explain.
Even the air felt thin and reprocessed.
The dash of the dates didn’t initially make sense: “1967-23,666.” Then I realized whoever designed it knew about my penchant to calculate my age based on the number of days instead of years.
Turning my head, I saw that four people stood behind me. Each of them carried a vial of colored sand. The sand shown brilliantly, like ground diamonds.
They didn’t speak English but I understood them.
“Does anyone have anything they would like to say?” I couldn’t see who voiced the words.
“No. I think he said it all before he left.”
As I turned my head again, the four people moved closer. I didn’t step away. They passed through me as they approached the spire. I felt like I had become mist.
Each of them opened their tiny vials and poured the contents into a almost invisible seam about halfway up the spiral. Flashes of almost every color began washing over the grass around them.
They disappeared as the sky became dark, like a sped up movie traversing time. As I watched the sun slide down the sky, my field of vision collapsed into a single dot of rainbow colored light and then disappeared.
I love when forgotten memories get unlocked by music. Monday afternoon I was scrolling and Sammy Arriaga’s version of Freddy Fender’s “Before The Next Teardrop Falls” came on.
I remembered a specific summer afternoon over the years. But for some reason, this time an enormous amount of details came back. It felt like a door had been unlocked and let me remember things that were locked away. It was July of 1990, back when I was as naive about so many things and an expert at things most people didn’t experience.
I hadn’t thought about that summer afternoon in years. Even though it was my first year at Cargill, I was trying to do something for Uncle Buck who had helped me yet again. Many people don’t know that it was because of him that I was able to do things that I otherwise might not have. Several times in junior high, he stepped in and helped me when my parents drank all their money away. I have to include Aunt Ardith in my thanks.
I mowed Uncle Buck’s yard for him. Because Aunt Ardith went to play bingo, Uncle Buck invited me to join him as he poured himself a “snortee.” Jimmy would have been at his job at Mary Maestri’s, working in the separate building on the large property at the corner of what is now highway 112 and 412. Like almost everything else, it’s an entirely different world out there now.
For once, I accepted a small glass of whiskey with two cubes of ice. Uncle Buck laughed like he did, pointing out that people who preferred to drink their whiskey straight were either sophisticated or about to start a fight.
When I was younger, Uncle Buck tried to encourage me to learn to play bass guitar. He liked to tease me about being in band and choosing the French horn. But he was glad that I was into music. Once I graduated, I turned down both a music scholarship and an offer to be in the United States Army Orchestra. Uncle Buck wasn’t someone who repeated himself often, but there were a few times he told me to find a way to get back into music.
Uncle Buck got out one of his records. He chose Freddy Fender’s “Before The Next Teardrop Falls.” He showed me the album cover and laughed at Fender’s enormous head of hair. By that age, I had already adopted my short haircut.
Probably because no one else was at the house, Uncle Buck told me to listen to the song with fresh ears. He said that it was one of the best examples of a perfect country song. Just a stripped down love song that wasn’t cluttered by technique.
I don’t know what Uncle Buck was thinking about when the song played the first time. It’s strange to me to think that he was around 57 years old that afternoon, just a little younger than I am now. Whatever look he had on his face, it was 100% nostalgic.
When he played it the second time, he explained it to me as a musician. While I don’t remember specifically everything he said, he told me that it was the perfect tempo to sing or dance to. That it was standard time, mostly major chords, and that it was the perfect example of a verse-chorus song. Uncle Buck was impressed with the fact that Freddy Fender made a hit out of it both in country and pop. Uncle Buck was also impressed that the song included a steel guitar and an accordion.
As the song played a second time, I almost fell out of my chair when Uncle Buck softly followed the lyrics as Freddy Fender switched to Spanish. Uncle Buck loved teasing me about speaking Spanish, but this time, after the song ended, I asked him about it. He told me that because he learned all music by ear, it was just a question of repetition.
We listened to a couple of other songs before Uncle Buck put on Charlie Pride’s “Kiss An Angel Good Morning ”
I don’t remember exactly how he put it, but he pointed out that it was almost perfect too, because it was the type of song bad singers could do reasonably well.
I wish I could remember what song he played next. That part is lost to me. He got up to pour himself another drink. He stood in front of his well-equipped stereo system, thinking. As an electronics tech for Montgomery Ward, he had nice stereo equipment. Whatever song it was, by the time it ended, he had downed his drink.
If I had it to do all over again, I would find ways to sit with Uncle Buck and have him talk about music. When he was younger, he had the chance to play with some amazing musicians in Memphis. Even though he played in a couple of bands that did well, he chose a good job with benefits over the musician lifestyle when he moved to Springdale. Because I’m older now and can relate to the fact that he was about the age I am now, I understand the nostalgia he probably felt that afternoon.
“The house you paid for and waited for is gone. You had it for a day. Why are you smiling?”
William laughed and looked at Robert.
“Are you kidding? I spent a day on the porch and went to sleep in a room exactly like the one I slept in when my Grandpa was alive.”
“You’re strange, ” Robert said. “But I understand.”
William flipped the retrieved nail in his fingers.
They stood in the carbon and ashes of what was the front porch. Even the creosote soaked railroad ties that served as steps were reduced to ashes. Behind them long strips of galvanized steel lay twisted and burned on the ground. Concrete pylons poked out from the burned remnants.
Both of them looked out across the cotton field and watched the dragonflies against the sunset.
“Sometimes a day is a lifetime,” William whispered into the baked air of the Delta.
Because of the unique view my apartment grants me, I’ve noticed there are certain moments before sunrise when there are fleeting moments of beauty. This mimosa stands guard across the street, adjacent to the railroad tracks. Because of the beautiful trail enhancements and the modern lighting that adorns it, there are a handful of minutes when the mimosa seems to be backlit. The brooding clouds seen to enhance it. I took this picture twenty-two minutes before sunrise.
Some people dislike silk trees because of the perceived mess and the gnarled roots that provide unexpected trips. But if you are a fan of hummingbirds, butterflies, and bees, these are among the best places to stand and watch when the sun is attempting to toast your head.
If I could pick a time of day to render as static and unchanged, it might be the time shortly before sunrise. When the subdued colors are HDR and the world waits to be awakened. If you stand still, each minute changes both in hue and feel.
The second picture is looking down Leverett where it reaches its end against the agri park. To the left is Narnia, fourteen acres of dense, wild growth that holds thousands of birds and small animals. Even though it’s difficult to see, at the bottom of the first towering electrical pole is a public notice that this property will soon be erased to become a dense housing complex. Everything about this little private area will change forever when that happens.
It doesn’t resemble much seen up close. But under the darker sombrous canopy of trees above the creek, shimmering with sunlight shadows, it looked alien and transplanted. I wish I had brought my markers and chalk to further adorn it and give it a bit of life through color.
Traversing the creek, the water granted me a sudden reminder that light refraction hides unexpected depths and drop offs. More so in clear water. I did not bite my tongue as I stepped a foot deeper than I anticipated.
From there I found a delightful sand and sediment bar. Once stepped on, I sank a foot and a half. I’m glad it ended there because getting out of those things is more of a goal than a certainty.
If you know where to look, there’s a hidden field along Green Acres Road. And if you’re out early enough walking in the magical hour before dawn, you can stop and watch the bats frolic. If you stand next to the beautiful decaying tree and look up, the bats will perform for you. Although the approaching morning sun diminishes their visibility, you can look up and see the moon and Venus twinkling. I don’t go watch the bats often enough.
P.S. Parenthetically Speaking 