Library Voices “Me, Myself and ID” b/w The Rolling Stones “Soul Survivor”
April 11, 2012 § Leave a Comment
Photo by Flickr user Patxi Izkue [cc]
Keep a record of your travels, little pieces of where you’ve been. Advice from my father the night before I headed out on my first road trip. The first trip without parental oversight. The night before I cut my way up the coast, the long and winding route that toyed with cliffs and precipices, the thought of which scared the living daylights (his frequent refrain) out of my father who bravely played the role of scaredy-cat in the family.
His easily frightened personality led to his reciting safety tips, precautionary couplets for any and all situations, dangerous or just potentially. Buckle your seatbelt before engaging the engine—mirror signal blindspot, in that order—wear a helmet and be sure the strap’s tight—look both ways before entering an intersection—the road’s at its most slippery right after rain.
I was raised on a gospel of what ifs and better safe than sorrys.
But now that he was about to let me off his leash, his usual almanac of accident-avoiding adages included a list of things I should tuck away rather than trash.
Receipts from gas fill-ups. A half torn ticket from a movie entrance. Your to-dos from the day.
Paste them into a notebook and that day will rattle around in your conciousness much longer.
Phone numbers scribbled out onto motel stationary.
In twenty years that day will be gone, but that burnt out matchbook you would’ve normally tossed will still remain.
That take-out menu will be that day. When do your days ever leave behind something tangible? Your birthday comes to mind. I watched you pushed out into the world. I remember that day like I was still living it.
I assured him I would with, sure. But he knew better. He knew when I was blowing him off.
It’s as close as you’re gonna get to living forever, he said.
I’m fine living just as long as I’m going to.
He rubbed his face, from temple to chin. You’re gonna be the death of me.
The Cure “Jumping Someone Else’s Train” b/w Lloyd Cole and The Commotions “Minor Character”
November 23, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Photo by Flickr user karrienodalo [cc]
You have to adapt or you’ll be out of style.
This is no way to write our story, I said. Telephone shouldered to my ear, I scraped the dirt from beneath my fingernails with the corner of a new dollar bill.
Penny and I were about through. Neither of us knew how to do what we knew we had to do. We shared a large amount of debris, making the path before us impassable.
Our paths brought us together, two ships in the night, in a bar, one that projects moving images of athletes in competition on every available wall space, two lonely astronauts in a space called life, a bowl-full of peanuts between us.
I was the only one pulling the meat from the shells.
She brought her beer closer, lifted her hair out and away from her head, then looped it around a finger, closer and closer back to her temple until her hair encircled the entire finger.
We made lethargic passes at each other, fulfilling our roles as the lonely and alone. Repeating come-ons that we’d heard here before, or on screens, in jokes, in the histories of our friends who’d succeeded in love. Maybe that’s why we were willing to try out such lines. Somewhere within these worn-out things there was hope. Hope for a chance, hope for hope, together, not one, two. And what do you know? Before we knew it we shared a life, a sink, cutlery, a rotary phone, a vegetable drawer, a clock with a bird that cuckooed.
We listed who got what now that we don’t share everything.
Her’s consisted of our daughter, just our daughter, the contents of the living room—the couches, bookshelves, books and the pottery that sits on the shelves between the books. She wanted my car and when I asked her why she didn’t want our son or her own car she said, I’m stuck here. I need a way to say no.
How were we going to clear the failed nights, pastoral days, and you-never-told-me-how-you-felts?
I told her I didn’t know how I felt.
At least you should’ve said that, she said. Look, she said, silence is not an option.
It will be now. I plan on going days and days and more without talking to her if I could only start.
Also she had me on the defensive when she recited the memory of the birth of our daughter. You left, she said, when I was tubed up to the medicine bag, when my contractions hit the hardest. You left. You left to eat. For a sandwich, she said.
Will you take her back?
She telephoned to say that she’d cut her wrists.