Honea Express

Archive for the ‘Melancholy’ Category

I do not need to see the paint to know it is there — a fresh coat of white where once grew the notches of their youth. Memories written in pencil tend to be erased, and those are the things you never like to think about. It was a trace of them, and it is gone.

The boys grow here, too. There is sunshine and warmth and toes sinking in sands ever shifting. The waves crash upon their laughter, and the boys wave back with salt-soaked smiles. Their hair is soft in strands of gold. Their shoulders brown and growing broader.

Somewhere in an overgrown garden are the fruits of their labor. Tiny leaves spring from seeds once carried home in love and paper cartons. They have been set free and forgotten — something new for countless raindrops to fall upon. They will grow and bloom and nobody will ever know that the boys were the ones to place them there. Only the roots will remember.

Here the ground is hot and it rolls towards the horizon. The boys are shouting as they run across it. There are paths worn in the hillside and their small steps keep the tall grass always parted. Rabbits dart, birds flock and the boys sing songs made of their own device. They glow in the midday sun and their brows glisten accordingly.

Such is the way of chapters closed, next and those being written. We have left pieces of us, some by chance and some with purpose. For example, there are places in the glen where our voices softly echo, and there are stories tucked away to tell when such things are needed. One is about an old dog asleep forever beneath the cherry tree, and it should be told fondly with just a hint of tears. Others are filled with countless bottles growing light and rather quick to empty. They should be told loud and often. We left all that, and a spot of quiet that wasn’t always so.

These are the things that fall from your postcard.

The sound was children laughing. The distance was measured in steps. There was skipping and screaming, and toys thrown asunder — the usual suspects of happiness that have lovingly littered our small street for the past two years.

“But there is something missing,” said the neighbor.

I said nothing and watched the children run by us. They took the hill with confidence, a blur of open mouths and hair blown by the wind. Between them flickered empty spaces of sunlight where my boys used to be.

I said nothing and watched the birds fly overhead. The clouds were low and pulled further down by greedy trees with nothing better to do.  The mist fell across my face, cool and sticky. It saved me the trouble of crying. The house just stood there with a blank look across its face, its door wide open. Inside it was nothing but boxes, echoes, and the ghost of a home slowly dying.

The children ran back up the hill, a pack chasing after laughter. Our eyes met as they passed me by, and for a moment the world fell silent.  I could read the writing on their wall, the smiles upon their faces. They were happy, but they knew it too, for they had left the spaces.

______________________

Reading this post again, I can see how those that don’t know our story may find it cause for concern. My children are fine. They have just moved to California ahead of me to spend time with their grandparents while my wife starts her new job.  Unfortunately, they left some great friends behind in the process.

It’s Father’s Day and I spent it at a beer festival, forgive me for waxing melancholy.

A working vacation in San Francisco ended with me hobbled and limping for home. I enjoyed my visit, but pushed my tired, useless feet too far. The swelling pain in them left me unable to walk, clutching the walls of the airport terminal like they were lined with last breaths. I moved at a pace roughly half that of the old woman with the cane. I believe she savored the moment that I became a spot of dust in her rearview bifocals.

I bit my lip until it bled and watched as empty wheelchairs rolled by for patrons much more used to their need. I was sore with pride and stupidity.

I closed my eyes on the plane, knowing my heart waited somewhere forward. I am not one for leaving it behind.

Days later had me working from bed. My right foot as swollen as it could be without bursting like an overblown balloon. I am at the mercy of my family’s patience and kindness. It has put my exhausted wife further to her husband’s end.

Today was Valentine’s Day. We had no plans for romance. My wife was over it sometime between the kids and the constant rains. I was done when I realized that chocolate and flowers were not the same as foreplay. It is a day we enjoy better for the mocking.

My morning was spent sprawled across a mattress stuffing Disney trinkets into cartoon cards while my boys signed their names in an assembly line of chicken scratch. Their day was filled with candy and roses. Except that there was more candy where the flowers should be.

Tricia worked the night shift, and soon the afternoon was replaced by evening, and my wife was replaced by a hole in the room.  The boys and I watched Finding Nemo, then sat on my bed and talked about cable cars and earthquakes. Zane shared thoughts on the protocol of Hallmark holidays. Atticus sang Black Bird in its entirety.

They were crawling from my bed to theirs when I said something about seeing my 4-year-old for the last time. That he’d be five come morning. It was supposed to build upon the excitement he’d been expressing for the better part of the last six months.

The only thing that built were the tears in his eyes.

“I don’t want to grow up,” he said. And with that he was  tucked against me crying for all he was worth. His brother followed with equal tenderness and I found myself broken from heart to foot and covered in the tears of my children.

Explaining the meaning of bittersweet is just that.

Soft words soothed as only soft words can do, and tears gave way to warm cheeks pressed tightly upon the other. Plans were made for continued awe and so much wonder. Their pace grew slow and steady.

They fell asleep in my bed, wrapped in a hug of brotherly love. I sat at their side, beneath the glow of lights turned low, listening to a clock chime hours unknown, and watching my foot, willing it to explode.

I’m fairly certain that children double in size on a daily basis. My theory is based upon new shoes that are too tight only an hour out of the box, cuffed pants that suddenly fear high waters, and shirts that decide to stop halfway between elbow and wrist without the common courtesy of listing REO Speedwagon tour dates across the back.

Of course another theory is that China is purposely making clothes that shrink as soon as they touch the sweat of freedom, but that would suggest capitalistic tendencies, of which Mike Tyson’s tattoo would not approve.  It would also suggest that American kids are actually breaking a sweat, but as far as I know there isn’t an app for that. However, it does explain why I no longer need a belt (I tend to sweat freely).

No, I blame the children. They’re growing faster than they should. Granted, it’s most likely due to milk hormones, but I also think there might be something to the old adage, time flies when you’re getting old as shit and you have young children. Pardon me, I paraphrased.

The point is, my little boys spend far too much of their time being big boys, and frankly, I’m against it.

That’s not to say that I want their growth, be it physical, mental or emotional, to be stunted. I just want them to pace themselves. Where’s the damn fire?

Each day, assuming I bother to stop and smell it, is full of rose-tinted milestones. Sure, it’s also full of a bunch of crap, but the moments are there, and I’m fully aware that it is only a matter of time, very little time, until they are not.

That’s the part about parenting that sucks.

It’s also what makes it so fucking glorious that life would pale without it.

They’re growing, and they’re finding themselves, and we’re pushing them, guiding them, holding the net, holding them back, and letting them fail, depending on the mood, on any given day.  You know what I’m talking about.

They say that the body grows while it is sleeping. I’m not a scientist. Hell, I didn’t even stay at a Holiday Inn last night. I’m of no authority to dispute such claims.

But I know what I’ve seen.

For all this talk of growth, time and the fleetingness of it, there are those wee small hours, aptly named, where darkness and silence work in perfect unison with a late glass of water or the lingering echo of movie monsters, and for a moment, one precious moment when you stir from a dream-soaked sleep, children shrink.

They appear at the foot of the bed, hair disheveled, cartoon-covered pajamas taut with the tininess of their stature, and their voice a whisper soft and wanting. They know nothing but need and trust, and there was never any doubt of whom to turn to.

Maybe it’s the abrupt awakening and the adrenaline that accompanies it, or perhaps there is something between the strength of a hairy back and the phases of the moon, but standing there in the still of the night with a bundle of love wrapped tightly around you, they will never feel more light. And nothing will ever be more clear.

You could dance together in small, slow steps somewhere along the hallway, just shadows, breaths and lullabies. No one would ever know, but for you and fading starlight.

My mind wanders through alliterated fields of frost-covered firs. The cat has on her winter coat and she is silently stalking sunshine between the strikingly shrinking shadows of suddenly stark trees. Not the firs, they are evergreen.

The lingering lines left by sun-soaked lumber lean and bend across a sea of long-lost leaves.  Mostly, cherry and maple. I pine for an oak.

I hide behind routine and repetition.

It is a sunny day forgotten by clouds and heavy rain. It should spark something inside of me. I should rise to seize it.  Yet I am weighed down by unknown troubles and those I know all too well.  One day a friend, the next day family, and before them more of the same fighting the cancers inside.  The future holds more fights and harder fists.

Also: The future ebbs and flows on the ballots of ignorance.

And: The future is all we have. We are reckless with our right to squander it.

The process is always and ongoing. It matters more than anything, and it matters very little.

Very little, indeed.

I am graced by the laughter of little boys and the life that they rush into.  I fear to tread, and I am more the fool because of it.

Troubles come and troubles grow, between them breathe the blossoms. Piles are raked of memories, and moving on, and those we could not hold on to.  They are best left for little boys with needs for things to jump in. These are the leaves that fall from my tree, reaching up to meet the downward.

The cat yawns. My branches are bare and beautiful.