From the archives #3 – Saturday Stroll for the Mad

July, 2007

I went running out today to erase the guilt of Greek indulgence last night and started my usual route on Lafayette past the little shops and the little people walking – but too embarrassed to turn around at the end of the street and head for home I quickly shot left and ran (into oncoming traffic) until I hit the park.  The park, or what I thought was the park, was where I had brought my cat rufus in the mourning years before during the week off I had allotted myself to ‘accept’ my brother’s sudden death.  I thought about a scene from a movie, my movie, where – there I am sitting on that bench with rufus and the cardboard box I used to smuggle her out of my apartment – and the next minute here I am four years later, running past, the loud groan of cars behind me.  I kept running on this road – traffic to my right, creek to my left.  And stared.  Why had I never come this far before?  Why, when people asked if I had been to the park had I responded without thinking?  I crossed a bridge just to stand over the water for a minute and stopped to see it crash over the dam.  Two geese sat atop, oblivious to the raging water, one honked hello and I smiled and waved.  My grin remained…I began to run, skip, laugh…paused on a rock to watch the water under a new bridge and with a giggle and a thank you sent into the abyss I was off.  “this was all I ever wanted…and it was right here all along.”  I was thinking that it was a metaphor for finding where I fit in this world…I always wish, hope, want – never SEEK.  GO.  FLY.  OFF!

I laughed.  Remembering my dad’s old army sack stuffed with brushes, my sketchbook, a gourd filled with more sunflower seeds than I could ever eat, and ‘Indian paint’ (the Windsor Newton acrylics I got for my birthday) running out of my house and as the screen door slammed behind me shouting ‘I’m going on safari mom!” only to trek down into the backyard to sit by the lake and paint symbols on the trees.

I ran on the path with a squish to every step.  I laughed at the sound and I laughed because I didn’t care about getting wet.  The ground here scattered with hardened snow and ice half melted had water lines like the sand ‘down the shore’ at low tide.  Perfect, random, orderly, shapes and lines.  The path drifted away from the creek and I thought, what a silly thing to do…walk on this path…wondering to the edge I stumbled onto a double date of sorts.  At first I thought the ducks were flying away out of the fear my presence must cause, but saw one male duck chasing a female in the water and learned differently.  I smiled – still smiling – and leaned on a tree.  I felt a little like I imagine St. Francis might have felt – such love, such childish delight in creation.  Climbing back up I almost – oops! – stepped on the home of a beaver or some kind of animal but caught my balance elsewhere.  My momentum kept me moving forward, faster, galloping almost, and thinking of St. Francis and my brother I smiled brighter and faster and…here I go…did a cartwheel in the mud, thinking, I wish I had a pen.

Two teenagers came into view and I tugged at my shirt and hid my smile.  You can’t let anyone know you’re mad.  But insanity’s giddy stare shown through the thin veil of social pretense and I strolled by broad-shouldered and broad-smiling gaping at the water.  The boy had a camera slung around his neck and a smiley “good morning” he offered before being corrected by the girl who reminded his own mad self “it’s nearly two…”

As I found my street I noticed the trees.  The bark, having endured wintry havoc, had splotchy splatters of brown, green and tan.  Exactly like camouflage – and I laughed thinking here’s the only place camouflage would actually be undetectable.  I felt the trees.  And as cars passed I knew they must think some hallucinogen was the cause of my wonder – my curiosity for the trees.  And so I laughed.

 

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~ by comeallwithin on 12/03/2011.