Walking to the lake, I see all the morning rush traffic on the Drive: off to work, to school, psyched for the workplace challenges, talking with animation on their phones, or staring stoically.
Escaping from the rules, the regimen, the having to be somewhere I don't want to be, doing something I don't want-------something most people learn to live with around the age of 10-----has always been a thing with me. All through grade school and high school I used to stare out the window, musing that someday I'd be outta here and never look back. College, I was stoned most of the time. Playing hookey in a bar is no way to spend one's adult life, but it worked for quite a while.(Sooner or later, they offer you a job.)
With this need for autonomy comes the inevitable feeling of lonesomeness, that the path I walk is "one person wide."
These days, as the rest of Chicago drives by, my favorite "dwelling spot" is four slabs of concrete on the shore that seem to form an altar of sorts: standing there looking out across the water,it's hard not to think of "god-stuff."
Other times It seems to be a perfect gathering spot for spirits from the past to get together and discuss the box scores of life. It even reminds me of a painting I saw a while back.
The box scores of this October show me with quite a few losses: old teachers, old friends, a lover from a different time, and, most sharply, my mom.
Sometimes October can be as gray as mourning doves, othertimes it's kodachrome everywhere you look.
This October marks a parade of sad anniversaries, the last Halloween with Mom, Thanksgiving, Christmas, the saying-goodbye.
With Autumn, I feel like those slabs of concrete by the lake are on my shoulders, and walking back from the lake, were I to see a pretty girl approaching, I would give her all the money in my wallet for her best hug.
No comments:
Post a Comment