There had been an amusement park that the fifth graders were all going to go to. It was a last-minute decision made by grown-ups that worked day jobs like those in fast food joints and small financial offices. The women running together the face of young girls, as a means of teaching them what adulthood was like, were all tired and disorderly. My mother was one of them, and she couldn’t afford the green vest that was the required uniform. I was peculiar even then and liked reading history books for fun. I would play back stories of cowboys robbing pretty ladies that wore red lipstick and black stockings with lots of lace. The days were long and poems were wrote about trees and those same trees were given names. I let the dust settle thick and it took a heck of a lot for anyone to come along and snap me out the reveries I had settling in the gut somewhere. There was a fascination for the ordinary, and hours would be spent living in the cracked cement and the way flowers grew out of darkness.  My best friend at the time, was a girl named Jennifer that lived down the street. Her house was a Victorian beauty that had a large staircase situated in the front sitting room. We used to tie baskets to rope and create a pulley-system, so that we could deliver letters in the comfort of her crystal palace. One time there was a love letter delivered to me. Jennifer pretended to be Charles Peanut and claimed my eyes gems forever. We would draw pictures of Charles and put them all over her bedroom walls. To us he was real and we’d even make a place for him at the kitchen table. This imaginary friend was something we’d joke about years later, in a Las Vegas strip mall. We were both in high school then and she had make-up caked on the face, and wore ripped jeans and a stringy tank top that made her breasts sing extra naughty. Hawaiian sub-plots got me intoxicated and I got heavy off folk music and dirty island sounds. I claimed knowledge of the ukulele, but mostly just liked walking around acting like I knew what I was doing. Every night would be spent shaping the shell of the person I decided to become and continued to be.  My memories always stemmed back to that summer we were supposed to go to the amusement park though. I couldn’t go last minute, because my great grandpa had died. Instead, I spent the weekend in a funeral parlor, lapping up the sorrow that spoke softly there. It was the artifacts found later, that changed me forever. My mom found an old notebook of his, that said something about loving everyone and feeling like you could help the world this way. After that, I was convinced he faded into the body. He was my air. Click for high-res image

There had been an amusement park that the fifth graders were all going to go to. It was a last-minute decision made by grown-ups that worked day jobs like those in fast food joints and small financial offices. The women running together the face of young girls, as a means of teaching them what adulthood was like, were all tired and disorderly. My mother was one of them, and she couldn’t afford the green vest that was the required uniform. I was peculiar even then and liked reading history books for fun. I would play back stories of cowboys robbing pretty ladies that wore red lipstick and black stockings with lots of lace. The days were long and poems were wrote about trees and those same trees were given names. I let the dust settle thick and it took a heck of a lot for anyone to come along and snap me out the reveries I had settling in the gut somewhere. There was a fascination for the ordinary, and hours would be spent living in the cracked cement and the way flowers grew out of darkness. 

My best friend at the time, was a girl named Jennifer that lived down the street. Her house was a Victorian beauty that had a large staircase situated in the front sitting room. We used to tie baskets to rope and create a pulley-system, so that we could deliver letters in the comfort of her crystal palace. One time there was a love letter delivered to me. Jennifer pretended to be Charles Peanut and claimed my eyes gems forever. We would draw pictures of Charles and put them all over her bedroom walls. To us he was real and we’d even make a place for him at the kitchen table. This imaginary friend was something we’d joke about years later, in a Las Vegas strip mall. We were both in high school then and she had make-up caked on the face, and wore ripped jeans and a stringy tank top that made her breasts sing extra naughty.

Hawaiian sub-plots got me intoxicated and I got heavy off folk music and dirty island sounds. I claimed knowledge of the ukulele, but mostly just liked walking around acting like I knew what I was doing. Every night would be spent shaping the shell of the person I decided to become and continued to be. 

My memories always stemmed back to that summer we were supposed to go to the amusement park though. I couldn’t go last minute, because my great grandpa had died. Instead, I spent the weekend in a funeral parlor, lapping up the sorrow that spoke softly there. It was the artifacts found later, that changed me forever. My mom found an old notebook of his, that said something about loving everyone and feeling like you could help the world this way. After that, I was convinced he faded into the body. He was my air.

Posted on December 26, 2011 at 1:25pm with 9 notes

Post Notes

  1. nicklas said: Love this. And isn’t Christmas about family, dead or alive? I think so anyway.
  2. drum-taps said: Beautiful.
  3. insomniagirl posted this