Entry #543745, added on 12-30-11 @ 9:07 pm EST
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| Chapter One: Jogging Memory | Entry #543745 |
How long had it been?
Jogging the trails of memory; the trees blurred, the gravel crushed, as his body saturated a T-shirt with thick sweat. Where had the past gone? Was it here? The indistinct scenary seemed crowded before he slackened his pace to the surroundings to thin out. The city park lost its familiarity, amid the sprawling cottonwood and birch. Looking up, sunlight obliterated the leafy outlines. Had these giants once known him as a child?
As Seth’s eyes adjusted, an opening appeared before him -- the path he took as a child. Would the layers of crushed gravel spread year after year by park crews conceal the distant memories? Was it too late to revisit the past that he mindlessly forget? He was about to find out.
Life: Alter as needed. That’s what they had told him, like he was some kind of adaptable piece of equipment; the kind of stuff that didn’t last too long if it wasn’t properly used, handled, stored. But this is a disposable society, not the world he once knew as a child, a place where substance mattered and style meant you were rich. And then, everyone wanted to be like the rich. He regretted getting caught up in the movement to show wealth, like he ever had any.
No, his family hadn't been rich. At least, his parents wouldn't allow themselves to live in the lap of luxury. That meant, hand-me-downs, scratch and dent and anything generic that didn't carry a brand name price. Seth's Mom could make clothing; she could make it last. Nowadays, if something was sullied or torn, just throw it away and buy something new. What had it meant not to be a slave to fashion with just a sewing machine or a thread and needle? Darn today is just a mild expletive to kids with holes in their socks. Life could be as sharp as a pink prick and make you wake up to realize how far you’ve come.
The open trail invited him into a dark past, covered by the dead gray leaves that Autumn had already forgot. Jogging the trails of the old park flitted memories through his head, a child was searching the woods. Trees no bigger than the sapling he once was now towered beyond his very existence, admonishing him for being beneath them. Paternalistic trees that once allowed cloying arms and legs to clamber their bark now mocked him. Why hadn’t he kept up? What kept him away so long? See what you missed?
Seth eyed another opening and a familiar park bench. The faded yellow color the same, a rustic memory was the first to come to life as he neared and eyed his chance to sit for a moment to ponder.
Fastened by cement and steel bolts to the hard, barren earth, the bench facilitated Seth’s need for rest as if it hadn't known him. He stared at the gray-blue water below. And there it was, the pond that contained as many obstacles as a lifetime of children could flail within and never fill to the brim. Where did it all go? Could the lake swallow all of those children and still look the same?
The murky green surface of summers past was replaced by a dull grey reflection of a blank sky. A few mallards eye-balled him cautiously from a small distance away. They had swum away from the shore during his approach, as if he would somehow launch himself at them like some predator. They hadn't known him. Maybe their ancestors did, but they would have done the same. They would do a double take as he flung stale bread crumbs in their direction as a child, their trust grew in greedy advances, as long as he made no sudden movements. The parks and recreation department no longer allowed free meals for the pond’s annual inhabitants. Apparently too many of the fowl fouled the pond, thickening scum as summers passed.
He retreated without another thought, and the jog continued.
Life altered; a pair of hemmed pants too long to walk in as a child, but not without the trusty, lip-clenched pins his Mom would use to hold the fabric into cuffs. Two quick passes through the Singer and he was on his way again -- until that growth spurt when the hem could be let out. That is, if he hadn’t worn out the pants before then; holes in the knees and grass stains that would get him admonished before that calculating stare took in the damage. And another alteration would be made and the pants would become shorts. Whoever heard of pinstriped shorts? Not even back then. No kid was safe walking the neighborhood with that economical fashion sense. It would be penance for the mindless acts of a daydreaming child.
Life: Alter as needed. As if one needed a daily routine, Seth thought. Who needs to do the same thing day in, day out. Tedium -- where's the variety that was the spice of life? No one could ever tell him when to stop indulging. If they had, like Kat had done, he would just have to keep it a secret.
The brushy trail weaved upwards, a steep slope that a child of 11 could easily traverse. Not so easy now. Had the gradient reached a greater angle? The air seemed too thin. Gasping, he pressed on. Hands on thighs just above his knees, he worked his pegs into the ground to keep momentum to the top, a higher precipice. He would soon overlook an entire town, one plotted in a child’s imagination of model houses with streets and trees.
Jogging the trails of childhood brought Seth here. How long had it been since he stared at such a quiet community from the sleepy overlook? Nothing much to remember except the protruding rock to the left where a daydreamer idled in his younger days. None of the features of smooth granite bluffs could be recalled. No signatures of past etchings with sharp stones could prove he had been here before. But he knew where he stood. The past had become the present.
How long had it been? Was it not easy to see; he had never left the past behind? He had let it play in his backyard; alone in the twilight, the rain and cold, year after year. He could stare out at the past with the sliding glass door shut and locked, sipping a cup of nothing. Stare with detached disinterest at what once was him. Was it you? he wondered. You treat it like someone else. It? It has feelings; you do. Don’t you? He couldn't say for sure anymore.
In the sandbox it still sits. No one to play with. No toys anymore. Where had they gone? Taken away? Broken from misuse or neglect? Look at it sitting alone, waiting for you. A thousand times it asked you to come out and play and you just stood there in your robe and slippers content to sip at that steaming cup of nothing and watch it with a removed look in your eye -- where are you? Looking at it? It knows you’re there. It tried for so long to reach you, but you would not go out and play. You would not let it come inside. Does it brood now in your self-imposed dark? What kind of person leaves that thing to long suffer alone in a fenced yard away from all the others? You don’t even scrutinize its features with your eyes. You treat it as ugly, loathsome -- a leper. But did you look? Look closer. Wasn’t it once beautiful and vibrant? Why do you shut it out? You think it has been too long, no going back. You don’t dare peer out into that dusk to see what it is, what it looks like, what it feels, what it needs. Do you fear it? So angry with you that it might shred the flesh from your bones like a blood thirsty savage?
You played in the dark as a child. You had someone to hold your hand, give you the security you needed. Who was it? Your Mother? Oh, yes. And do you remember how it was at the end when she couldn’t take care of you anymore? Remember the nursing home?
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Kat sat at the upright piano, remarking how well tuned it was and wondered who had taken such care to allow such sweet notes to fly away from the hammers and strings. “Seth, come here and listen to this."
Seth’s contemplative stare was taken away from the visiting room window to refocus on the under-lit surroundings. Kat grinned ear to ear, eyes clamped shut, as if to soak from the air that floating melody of what was it? Gershwin, maybe? Hard to tell. Seth didn't know music all too well. It was just something that came on whenever he turned the key in the ignition of his pick-up truck before he would turn it off again. Kat would be the one to insist on listening to the contemporary music station. He couldn't imagine staying awake driving to those timeless pieces of....
"Seth. Come on, sit with me!” There she was again. He had remembered how beautiful she was when she was happy. When she had a chance to let those fingers prance across the keys. He hoisted himself from the small window ledge where the heat had been blowing gently on his back and sauntered over to stand next to the piano to take it all in.
"What are you playing?"
"Hmm?" She was already distracted by the time he neared.
"The song. What is it?"
"One of the first songs I learned on my Mom's old Steinway. Bach."
to be continued...
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