Thursday, November 19, 2009

Your Name is Bob, You Smoke A Pipe



Sometimes I wonder if I am addicted to addicts.

It's getting cold again. My room faces the field and some mornings I wake up to frosted kale and can't remember my own name.

All in all, I am doing okay.

My friends here gently suggest some couch time now and again, but they don't see the beauty of driving around when a song named after my bloodline comes on.

Grief to me comes in quiet waves. Some days Bob is simply a syllable, other days it's the voice on the other side of the phone that I will never hear again.

I have formed an unfortunate habit in my life that is just coming to light as the stones quietly multiply.

I have yet to go see my father's grave.

I could cover this simple fact up with my belief in there being nothing under that grass but earth.

However, the extra miles on my car that are mysteriously absent seem to think differently. It has manifested itself in a little girl homesickness that I seem to have developed. Three months is a fascinating period of time to change everything or absolutely nothing at all.

In between the waves, I get occasional feelings of solace. When I was 14 years old, I had a forgotten day where nothing fascinating happened other than it was winter, and there was snow, and Rashka and I went for a walk.

I will always remember that moment for the clarity the menial brought me. I tried so hard to remember every step so when I was old and my energy was about to leave me, I would still feel the cold air and my young veins and the beauty of not knowing things yet.

That memory keeps coming up for me, and I realise perhaps I didn't save it for the wrinkled face of my old self. I saved it for when things weren't so much ordinary as just shit.

It amazes me sometimes how I left little time capsules along the way.

My father was an orchid child, my mother from the dandelions, and I, in an orchid way, planted a some very dandelion seeds.

and I have both of them to thank for that.

Especially when it comes time to remember my name.