Tag Archives: Children

Anything’s Missing

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Have you ever walked off a plane to see someone holding up a sign with your name on it? Me neither. But that was the feeling Parker had when watching Barbara Harris perform in Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? or, as Parker retitled it, Who is Harry Kellerman and Why is This About Him When Allison Densmore Is More Interesting And Only Has One Good Scene? Parker wanted to perform it for an audition, a decision that majored on meta, since the scene is an audition, before turning into a dialogue with the director; really, though, it’s a monologue with interruptions, all of which Parker ignored; therefore, we will do the same, in our transcription:

“The best part was just coming up. I have three good notes. I never seem to get to them. I can’t leave. I can’t leave I’m sorry I – I can’t leave…I feel like I just auditioned for the part of human being and I didn’t get the job. See, it – it took me three weeks to get this audition. And I bought a new dress and I worked on my song and and I had my hair done – Mr. Max 22.50 a work of art with lashes – and now I can’t leave right away, I just can’t leave right away…Oh God, I hate these auditions. I’m not what you’re looking for. I’m not even Linda Kaiser. She’s my roommate. My name is Allison Densmore. I never use it because it sounds so old. Centuries old. It sounds like a lot of doilies to me. Very beautiful here with the lights out. This is a – this is a great set for Lucia de Lammermoor. Dawn on the Moors. I study opera every day an hour. Do you like opera? I have ’em all here. Opera’s the best. People live at the top of their lives and die very beautifully. Lucia and Edgardo – they meet on this moor at dawn. She saves him, in a way, but mostly he saves her from a wild bull. And she’s crazy about him. So they save each other. Mister, listen to me, I’m still auditioning. All the time I think I’m auditioning. I wake up in the morning and the whole world says, “thank you very much, Ms. Densmore, that’ll be enough for now…it’s not the audition. It’s not that. It’s my birthday. I’m 34 years old today and I’m not prepared. I’m prepared for 22. Right now I could do a great 22. I woke up this morning and all of a sudden I was not young…Not young enough for this dress. Not young enough to be a corporate librarian with three good notes and a briefcase of opera. Mister, I don’t understand what happened to the time. All of a sudden I’m going into my tenth year of looking for a new apartment. I’m not much of a singer. And I’m not a gifted file clerk either. The one good thing I’m good at is being married but my husband wasn’t. That was 10 years ago. I’ve never learned another trade. The time, Mister, it’s not at all a thief, like they say, it’s something much sneakier. It’s an embezzler, up nights, juggling the books so you don’t notice anything’s missing.”

Parker felt as though anything and everything was missing. Some of that could be dismissed as a symptom of cultural messaging, because he wasn’t married, didn’t own a home, didn’t have dental insurance, the last of which became important recently as a lump developed on the inside of his lip. Now his tongue passed over it – and he read the monologue – again and again. He was increasingly convinced of two things: 1) Not a word of it needed to be changed for his audition, not even the gender pronouns, and 2) He could not perform it for his audition, for the same reason you can’t lick your ear; it’s all just too connected. And, of course, if your tongue is preoccupied with a lump, that compounds the problem. For months Parker had optimistically ignored it, but one day he made the mistake of mentioning it to a nurse friend, which began her badgering him to call a local school of dentistry for a cheap appointment.

Yes, it was easy not to notice anything was missing, until you started grabbing for something. And Parker was getting grabby. For example: his roommate. The young man was just nice, not to mention straight, but Parker had a tendency to misconstrue gestures as overtures. One day, after Parker had put the kettle on and lit the wrong burner, causing a greased pan to smoke, the roommate noticed and turned it off, smiled and rested a hand on Parker’s shoulder; he nearly collapsed under the weight. One night, while the roommate’s back was turned, Parker took a picture, texted it to a friend, declared the body good. Since we’ve practically used the slogan, we might as well state that essentially Parker was one of those ’90s milk commercials, feigning coyness but completely prurient.

He thought about this while driving home late on a Thursday night, accompanied by the university radio station. The DJ had crafted a playlist with a fantastical theme, and when “Puff the Magic Dragon” came on, Parker felt as he was at the center of a push/pull shot: the car moved forward, but his mind went back, back, back, to when he was 10 years old, to the small town in which he was raised, in a vintage ice cream parlor, in front of a jukebox. Perhaps it was his first memory of music as a mode of transportation, taking you elsewhere.

I wish I had a pair of little magic glasses
That I could see the future just by looking through

Another song had started, a strange lullaby by – was that Johnny Cash? Yes, it was. Apparently he had done a children’s album. If “Little Magic Glasses” was any indication, it was a children’s album that parents would not like. Not because it was silly and obnoxious, because it was direct and vulnerable, states of being which adults carefully avoid.

Parker’s phone rang. It was someone he met in junior high; the friendship had passed the test of time, or at least the first 20 years of it. The friend was in recovery for alcohol, had relapsed. Their voice oozed through Parker’s phone, syrupy: “I’m out of excuses. I’m 34. I’m working at Pizza Hut. I come home in the uniform and my daughter says ‘I’m going to wear a uniform too,’ and I say, ‘no, no, honey, you’re going to do better, this is beneath you.'” The friend cried. Parker was quiet for awhile. “Still,” he responded. “Your daughter likes you. Sounds as though she loves you.” The friend exhaled. “My children are each a bell. Each of them ringing continually in my heart.”

Students at the school of dentistry examined it – Parker’s lump – and one of them left to find the doctor. Under the fluorescent lighting, Parker’s vintage cocktail shirt seemed dirty, as did his sneakers, which he had just cleaned that morning. The doctor arrived, touched the lump, and announced it was a mucus cyst that Parker must have aggravated somehow. The cyst could be removed, but there was a high likelihood of it returning. Parker opted to leave it, and, as if a need for attention had been met, it began to recede.

Prayer

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Lord,

out of the depths we cry to you

our souls melt for heaviness;

they are weary with sorrow

they are downcast

bowed down to the dust.

Our tears have been our food

day and night.

 

We mourn for the loss of Your children

who came to what they hoped

was a space where they could be safe

and the space was violated.

 

They were teachers and parents

great friends and brand managers

overprotective brothers and army captains,

contagious personalities and pharmacy technicians

good kids and assistant producers

blood brothers and ride operators

the best godmothers and Target employees

beautiful souls and high school graduates

cancer survivors and baristas

dancers and the kindest people you could meet.

 

But first and last and always

they were, and are,

Your children.

We mourn for them.

We are in mourning.

And we will not move on

we will not move on

no matter how undignified it may seem

or how uncomfortable anyone becomes

we will not move on

we will not move forward

we will not move away

we will not move from this spot

until we have flooded our beds with weeping

until we have soaked the dirt with tears

until the roots of injustice are permeated with grief

and while we grieve we wait.

 

We wait for you, oh Lord,

more than watchmen

wait for the morning.

 

And we ask, “who can show us any good?”

 

Let the light of your face shine upon us, oh Lord.

for only You can turn our darkness into light.

Surround us with songs of deliverance.

Cover us with Your feathers,

give us refuge under Your wings,

prepare a table in the presence of our enemies:

for those we have mistaken for our enemies

but are brothers, sisters

whom we are called to love

because we are the Church

even if we don’t understand

even if we don’t agree

if we can live in complete unity

then the world will know

You are Love

and they will know us

by Your Love

the Love only You can do

for You are Love

and Love

is a promise that preserves our lives,

everlasting to everlasting,

unfailing,

full of redemption,

always protecting,

always trusting,

always hoping,

always persevering

always displaying your power

among the people

the people whom

You Love

You Love

You Love

with a

jealous

dangerous

amorous

scandalous

Love

Love

Love

 

One thing we ask

this is what we seek:

for Your children lost,

Your children here,

Your children here who are lost,

let us dwell in Your hiding place

the shelter of Your tabernacle

high upon the rock of our salvation

let us dwell in Your house

Forever and ever

Amen.

Pulse

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“I was looking at their ages…[they] might’ve been out for their first night at a gay bar…” someone says on the radio. “Seeing, you know, what I consider to be children have to face this…”

I consider them to be children, yes. Older than the children at Sandy Hook, at Columbine, but still children. I consider myself to be a child at that age. In my early ‘20s. In 2005. In Orlando. In Pulse.

“We went there,” a friend says on the phone, “we went there all the time.”

I remember going there and pacing around the block for an hour before deciding to go in. Or was that another club? That was another club. It could have been any club. It could have been me, it was not me, it is with me, it is over me, a large black umbrella that was handed to me a long time ago and it was not heavy at first but I’ve been holding it so long that my hand is shaking.

“You seem focused,” a roommate says as I unload groceries.

“I lived in Orlando.” I say. “I was at that club every weekend.” The roommate is holding the refrigerator door handle but I don’t realize and reach for it; I accidentally grab his hand, he instinctively pulls away, I open the refrigerator. I place bags of celery and carrots on cold shelves.

I reread the names, the ages. I look at their pictures again. I feel as though I am attending the ceremony of the dead in Sartre’s The Flies, where the departed souls return, enraged. They are rattling me like a chandelier in an earthquake. I want to sit in a gay bar and drink. I want to go to a gay club and dance. I want to have sex with as many men as possible. But I am in recovery. I am celibate. I am not going to do any of these things. So I get a Judy Garland film from the library. I Could Go On Singing.

Judy plays Jenny, a part written for her, a part that is her. Dirk Bogarde plays her ex, David. “I can’t be spread so thin. I’m just one person,” Jenny says to him, slightly drunk but getting sober. “I don’t want to be rolled out like pastry, so everybody get a nice big bite of me. I’m just me. I belong to myself. I can do whatever I damn well please with myself and nobody can ask any questions.”

On the radio they are interviewing someone who is placing white carnations and notes on the car windshields of family and friends of victims as they meet with the FBI. The note says, “You are loved.”

David starts to say he loves her, but Jenny places a finger on his lips. “Don’t – don’t say it. Because if you said it now, and if you didn’t mean it – I think I’d die – I think I’d die.”

BWB

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In our neighborhood, if you are outside, you are open for business – and the children will get in your business. I was sitting on the front stoop like Baby John in West Side Story, trying to be tough but totally harmless. The children, on this day represented by Dreana, came tumbling towards me.

“I’m going to paint your nails,” Dreana announced.

“No you’re not.” I countered.

“It’s boy nail polish.”

“That doesn’t exist.”

And so Dreana began painting my nails with her spit. I was going to ask her to stop, but it didn’t seem important. The next day she was back with the boy nail polish. To her credit, it was blue; a bright blue that has never cried. She also brought a boy, Anthony, as if this might prove persuasive. Again she asked and again I refused, so she started painting the siding.

“Please don’t do that,” I said. She paused for a moment. Then continued.

“What did I just say?” I snapped.

“Yeah!” Anthony matched my tone and made a grab for the nail polish, and Dreana made a fist, and the bottle didn’t want to pick a side, so it fell, spilling the candy blueberry polish all over the porch. With a squeal the kids scattered. I muttered all the way upstairs for a rag and sighed all the way down. As I rubbed repeatedly, the polish gradually transferred from concrete to rag, until the rag appeared as though some blue-blooded cartoon animal had bled on it.

It was the same color I saw at the Ebony fashion exhibit, in a far outfit of swimsuit, coat, scarf and stockings that was not suitable for any occasion. My friend Althea and I wandered through the temple of black goddesses, who were wearing fabulous ensembles and arranged in rows, like ornate columns supporting a vision. “These mannequins must have DNA, they are so lifelike,” I said. “That one looks like Naomi Campbell.” We approached some casual wear that was too coordinated to be casual – every piece similarly patterned in blocks of black and blue and trimmed with white lines – and I pointed at it, declaring, “I could wear that.”

A week later I returned from work and tried to close the distance between the car door and the front door as quickly as possible. Anthony shouted from down the street. “Wait up!”

“I’m waiting,” I said, not slowing or stopping. As I was unlocking the door he limped up the steps, holding something under his arm. “I broke my leg,” he said.

“No you didn’t.”

“This is my crutch.”

“No, that’s a snow shovel handle without the shovel,” I pushed the front door open.

“Hey!” Anthony leaned down, grabbing my pant leg and pulling it up a little. “What shoes are you wearing?” He asked.

“Adidas,” I said.

“Those are for black people.”

“That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard.” And with that line, I exited inside, eager to be alone with my backpack, as it contained the love/hate letter Dear White People. It’s “a satire about being a black face in a white place,” but really it’s a chiaroscuro of characters at an Ivier-than-thou University. Among the students are Coco Conners, a black blogger with the nickname “blue eyes” because she prefers white men and helps one of their fraternities throw a blackface party so she can live blog the proceedings. “Tell me,” she mockingly implores the camera, “why are white folks so obsessed with being black? Hell, why are black folks addicted to blonde Barbie doll weaves? It’s a strange symbiosis that we’re here to investigate.”

“Can I destroy this terrible exegesis?” my roommate demanded the following morning, standing in the bathroom doorway, gripping a page torn from a Sunday School coloring book that had been taped on our refrigerator. I put down my toothbrush and examined the picture. The face of God floated in heaven, wearing a beard composed of the surrounding clouds. A child had bore a crayon back and forth across the face, likely Ultramarine, a shade which is based on Lapis lazuli, the semi-precious stone coveted since ancient times for its intensity. “Blue is fascinating,” according to Yale ornithologist Rick Prum, “because the vast majority of animals are incapable of making it with pigments. They have evolved a new kind of optical technology, if you will, to create this color.”

Handing the picture back to my roommate, I said, “let’s keep it,” and together we left for work. Despite a week of rain, the polish on the porch had not faded.

The Bachelor and the Baby Fox

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12/19/14

So my sister had a baby – or, judging from the damage, a grenade. “There was more blood than Carrie,” she said over the phone just hours after the birth. “Why are you calling me?” I asked. “You just pushed an entire bowling alley through your vagina.” She laughed, more in agreement than amusement. “I wanted to call you,” she said, “because he has red hair like you.” “Are you sure?” I said. “Maybe that’s blood.”

12/25/14

“Are you looking forward to holding him?” My cousin asked. “I’m not going to hold him,” I replied. “Oh come on, of course you will,” she persisted. “You’re projecting a lot of humanity onto me right now,” I said. “This is not some cynical exoskeleton protecting a bleeding heart. That thing did some serious shit on the way out. It’s a Small Assassin. I am concerned for my sister.”

12/26/14

“I got the TDAP or CPAP or pap smear or whatever,” I said to a friend. “I was like, ‘but I’m not going to hold the baby,’ and they’re like, ‘but you still have to get the shot.’ So I got it. And a book: Parenting Beyond Pink and Blue: How To Raise Your Kids Free of Gender Stereotypes. That is as involved in their parenting as I’m ever going to be.”

12/27/14

“I wanted to tell you,” I started to tell my sister as my mother started to tell me about the baby room. “Come see it. You have to see it.” I smiled with a few too many teeth. “I was about to embark on a topic beyond the baby,” I raised an eyebrow, “which is a little scary, I know.” The joke sounded angrier than I’d intended.  Fleeing the scene I’d just created, I said, “let’s see it.” It was a four-walled forest with painted trees and little foxes, getting into trouble and looking cute doing it – a strategy which, I felt compelled to explain to them, will only work so long. My sister asked what I was going to tell her before. “Oh, just that I’m reading A Series of Unfortunate Events,” I said, “which really should be retitled A Series of Stupid Adults. They are so stupid. They keep doing the same stupid things.”

12/28/14

The iPhone illuminated my face like the light from an open refrigerator. “A Wisconsinite in Missouri: the sign says Deer Run. I thought it said Beer Run,” I texted to him, since he is from here. “How long will you be there,” he texted back. Our here and there would be the same place for a few days. We set a time to meet. Just for a drink, I thought, and it seemed to echo in my head, a mockingbird in a small cage. I strolled down the middle of the road, guided by Christmas lights. The front of one house was flooded with undulating rainbow flecks of light, broken candy floating in water. I stared into the houses and watched people live. It seemed like voyeurism but felt like intimacy; as a girl cares for her dolls and dollhouse, I cared for them. Instead of ear muffs I wore Bose noise canceling headphones and listened to Book of Love: “I want to be where the boys are / But I’m not allowed / I’m not a boy / I’m not a boy.”

12/30/14

Tossing the baby to our parents, we went Into The Woods. The lyrics and music carried us even as they made us walk. “Mother cannot guide you / Now you’re on your own / Only me beside you / Still you’re not alone / No one is alone, truly / No one is alone / Sometimes people leave you / Halfway through the wood / Others may deceive you / You decide what’s good / You decide alone / But no one is alone” On the ride home, my brother-in-law said, “this musical means a lot more now.”

12/31/14

“The baby looks like you,” a mutual friend of my sister and I said. “Hopefully the resemblance is only physical,” I said. It was New Year’s Eve at Missy B’s, a place just as trashy as it sounds. The friend bound her breasts like Hilary Swank in Boys Don’t Cry and shaved her head like Sinead O’Connor in everything and people thought we were a couple and we did not correct them. An adorable doofus found me on the dance floor around midnight and tried to kiss me. Our beards brushed as I shouted in his ear, “I’m not that kind of boy.” I should have added “anymore.”

1/1/15

“Apologies, but I must cancel. A good friend of the family has died so we are leaving early,” I texted the boy from here. Not a good friend of the family, really, only of my father, but it sounded better, and I felt better, like an animal caught in a trap and released into the wild again. I was even ready for the Anne Geddes photo shoot. The baby was naked and someone was aiming a hair dryer at his ass. It was a whole situation. My family had held steady for a week in their requests for me to hold him, so I did. Long enough to snap a few pictures, then I passed him back to the professionals. The red shirt I had been given for the occasion – World’s Greatest Uncle – could be taken off. I left it on.

The Boys and Girls Next Door

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The boys and girls next door come over for the first time on Friday night. They are from Chicago and the youngest girl informs us that it is better than Milwaukee. An older sibling glares at her and translates for us, “no it isn’t, we like Milwaukee,” as if we rule the city and will banish them for treason.

The middle brother admits he likes to draw and we bring out white paper. There is trash talking and telling us to bring more; it is now a game of Pictionary and each is determined to win. One doesn’t draw at all, but keeps writing our names in different fonts and sizes, as if to commit them to memory. Mine says “boy” on the left side, “Ben” in the middle and “man” on the right. I quite agree with the placement.

When the pizza is ready, we become like flight attendants, giving instructions that they don’t quite listen to. We say: there is pizza with meat; with just cheese; these have marinara sauce; this has white sauce. They don’t understand the white sauce. We try to explain it to them. They don’t eat it.

After they lose interest in drawing, we are left to our own devices – iPhones and iPads. A housemate finds music videos of Willow Smith, who whips her hair into a fireball, dressed like Janet and Michael and dancing like neither of them. “Whether it’s black stars or black cars,” Willow sings, “I’m feeling it.”

One of the girls asks to “use it,” and on the way to the bathroom, passes the monolith photo album that also functions as a refrigerator. She sees a snapshot of Meldon, our former housemate. Mel is the type of phenomenal woman that Maya Angelou wrote about: smart, soulful, mischievous, gorgeous. “Why y’all friends with dark-skinned people?” The girl asks. “Why wouldn’t we be?” I ask back. “I don’t know,” she says.

As we reenter the living room, everyone is riding the roulette wheel of childish whims and YouTube suggestions, somehow arriving at Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You.” We all sing like we always will. I remember the people who said she didn’t have soul, and my mom, who said that to sing like Whitney Houston was her idea of heaven. As I watch one of the girls lean into my housemate for a hug, I think this might be something like mine.

House & Home

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This post and its comments were originally published on Transformation City Church’s blog.

 

“I had this dream of showing my kids where I grew up,” my sister said. I never thought of showing my kids where I grew up; I never thought of having kids. “Yeah,” I said, as if I had this thought.

“It was such a magical place to be a kid, with the woods and the fort and everything,” She said, then sighed. “But why would my kids care? I hope mom and dad get a good price for it.”

Megan called. Megan doesn’t like the phone because you can’t read facial expressions, whereas I like it for the same reason. So when Megan calls, it’s because she has to. I said bye to my sister and switched over. “Hello?”

“Hi,” she blurted above background noise that was becoming foreground. “Some kids just came over and asked to stay awhile. Would you mind coming down? Ben’s not home yet.”

My eyebrows pressed together like WWE stars and a wrinkle refereed between them. “Yes,” I said, manipulating my inflection into that of a cheerful giver, “I’ll be right down.”

Megan greeted me as I walked in. “They just rang the doorbell and said the police are at their house,” she whispered, “so I said come in. What else could I do?”

At the table, two sisters had opened the older one’s birthday present: a princess crown-making kit, complete with tiny sequins and beads and glitter and other girlie debris. “Wow,” I said, “that’s pretty cool.” The older one looked up at me. “You want to play?” She asked. “No thanks,” I said.

Their 10-year-old brother was in front of the TV, watching Phineas and Ferb and holding Megan’s baby. “Look at you,” I said, “you hold a baby better than I do.” He shrugged and responded, “I always hold my baby sister.” I smiled and shook my head.

At the end of the episode a casual messenger came to the door and said, “the police are gone, ma said come back now,” and left before I could ask for their credentials. I scanned the street. The police were gone and the crowd was going too. “OK guys,” I said, “you can go home now.”

The brother stared at me like he didn’t understand.

“Come on,” I said to the sisters, picking up the princess paraphernalia. “Do you want to keep the box?” I asked. “Yes,” the older one clutched it. On the front there was a picture of a beautiful castle. It looked as though it were built of sand and clouds and glass.

Recycling

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This post and its comments were originally published on Transformation City Church’s blog.

 

“Does Milwaukee recycle in winter?” I snapped at Kevin, who was about to throw a wrapper in the trash. He paused.

“Yeah?” He murmured, still holding the wrapper.

“Then why,” I tromped over to the window and jerked a finger downward at the driveway, “Have they not emptied our recycling bins? It’s been weeks. No, months. The bins are overflowing. They’re foaming at the mouth. Haven’t you noticed?”

“Um, I guess I didn’t notice,” he blushed, “But then, you always take out the recycling.” He lowered the wrapper into the trash, set it there, and stared at it.

“Not always,” I smiled.

But almost always. He hangs out with kids, I take out the recycling. If we reversed roles, I would probably end up putting the kids in the recycling bin and he would let the cardboard and cans accumulate around him until he couldn’t move anything except his tongue.

“I’m calling the city,” I declared, drawing my phone and spinning through contacts.

A representative at the Department of Public Works had several interesting theories for the lapse in recycling pickup, one of which was holidays. This was compellingly plausible until I remembered that the only holidays in the last two months were New Year’s, Martin Luther King Jr. and George Washington’s Birthday, none of which were 8-week jubilee celebrations necessitating the shutdown of all local government.

Finally, I had to contribute: “I don’t mean this to be pretentious…” We always say we don’t mean before we say what we mean, so we can be mean without being seen as mean.

“I don’t mean this to be pretentious, but we do tend to recycle more than most people in our neighborhood,” I paused. “We recycle more than we throw away,” I laughed. Yes, I’m good-humored about my goodness. Really, I don’t even think of it as goodness, it’s just a little habit I have, being good.

“Oh yes,” the representative laughed. “You know what? I’ll put a note here to have them do a pick up a week before they were going to. Also,” she said, “once it’s warmer the schedule will be more regular.”

“Thank you,” I said, thinking. “Good bye.”

Once it’s warmer. Last spring and summer, the neighborhood kids had a favorite game, which confused me for a while. Standing about 15 feet from one another, they threw the ball back and forth, but didn’t catch it; they tried to hit some flat shiny objects on the walk. I couldn’t figure out what they were, so I got closer. They were crushed empty soda cans.

991

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This post and its comments were originally published on Transformation City Church’s blog.

 

There were 3 kinds of chips, 4 kinds of dip, 5 kinds of vegetables and some kind of nut mixture. Which was kind of ridiculous, considering the meal was yet to come.

People hovered around the table like hummingbirds, dipping into this and that. “That’s hummus,” I enlightened a cousin who was contemplating it, “It’s got olives – you’ll like it, you’re Italian. Well, I mean, it’s Middle-eastern, but whatever.” After delivering that bonbon of a bon mot (funny outside, foolish inside), I strolled to the beverage table.

There were 3 kinds of wine, 3 kinds of beer and 4 kinds of soda. Which was kind of ridiculous, considering wine was the only one worth drinking.

“Hey, Ben,” another cousin began, after a swig of beer, “where are you living now? Your dad mentioned something a few months ago about you living – ”

“In the ghetto,” I sang.

“Right,” he chuckled, “how is that?”

“Well, the other day some kids beat my car with a bat,” I smiled, raising my glass to the kids.

“Really?” He murmured.

“Really,” I repeated. “They probably think they’re the 99% and we’re the 1%.” I gulped some wine and looked into the half-full glass. “They’re probably right.”

Home Alone

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This post and its comments were originally published on Transformation City Church’s blog.

 

The wind blows from its diaphragm and the trees do the wave like a crowd at a sports game. For a moment I marvel at the movement; it’s paradoxically collective and individual. It would be maddening to animate. Maybe this is why there aren’t many animated movies starring trees.

For three days the housemates have been at a conference. Every day I have the same conversation with a different kid, or the same kid. “Where Kevin at?” they ask. “At a conference.” I answer. “Where Ben and Megan at?” They ask. “At the same conference.” I answer. They walk away.

The conference is hosted by the Christian Community Development Association, and I was invited, but I declined. It’s held in Indianapolis. Indianapolis, Minneapolis…what stupid names. “Welcome to the city of the state we live in.” That’s more Original than Werther’s! Oh I know, there are several Greek scholars who could expound on Polis in terms of Philosophy and History, but I would get angry and argue with them, and then gyros would be ruined, ruined, and I don’t know why that matters since I don’t eat gyros due to Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

A chill tickles my spine but I refuse to go inside and put on a sweater because I would soon take it off. Tonight is the restless middle child of summer and autumn; so desperate is its desire for approval, and its denial of it, I am almost moved to pity, but move past it to repulsion.

On the curb, several stacks of furniture and garbage form makeshift memorials, commemorating those who have recently moved out – people of various sizes and textures, each one of them a feature in the topography. Opening the door to my car, sometimes I patted a hand on the kids’ heads, waved a hand at the adults. Closing the door to my room, I laid hands on the keyboard.

A friend calls. I do not answer. They leave a voicemail. I listen to it: “I’m feeling lonely, but that’s not your fault.”

Across the street I see a man on his front porch holding a cell phone. I wonder if he sees me.