I wish I'd gone fishing with my dad. Spent more time listening to him and less time arguing with him. I wish I'd taken an interest in who my family is, followed the histories, written them down before they were washed away by confusion and self-doubt. I wish I could go back and spend a while in my past, knowing what I do now. I would have cleaned my room and set the table more, and tried a little less in school. Being labeled "wicked smart" in high school really set me up for disappointment later in life. Constantly.
I wish I hadn't wasted so much time chasing after boys. Most of them weren't worth it, and the ones who were I didn't have to chase. They became permanent fixtures in my life. I call them friends, and that word expressed in its true form is more powerful than 100 dates and roses and broken promises, broken hearts.
The old saying is true, hindsight is 20/20. I'm not saying my entire life was a screw-up and I wish I could do the whole thing over. I've had a beautiful life, and I intend on making it last as long as possible. I've made more mistakes that most like to admit, most of which were stupid and their consequences more than lenient.
I keep myself from doing a lot of things I dream of, simple things and extreme, for reasons I don't even understand. Part of me feels like I have to stay close to home, waiting for something monumental to happen where I have to jump in and save everybody. Maybe I'm just scared. But I've never really traveled. I want to see the Greek Islands, the black sand beaches. I want to see the world from the top of a mountain, breathe air that's damp and smells like pine and cedar. I want to visit all the oceans, prove they're all actually one. I want to see the constellations from another angle, a different hemisphere. To see the Northern Lights. Instead I recreate the music of the places I wish to be, collecting instruments and halfway learning them all. I read books of adventures I won't go on and drink warm beverages from incredibly large mugs.
I took a "big trip" about a year ago. I went vertically across the country to visit a friend for a week. I lounged on a couch for week and watched ice hockey. I did visit the ocean for the first time. It was beautiful. We went at night. The stars and the waves and the salty air and the shells that you never seem to fully realize are there until you step on a broken one. My first trip alone. No parents, no friends traveling along, no chaperon. I didn't even ask permission. I planned it, saved for it, and went for it. The fact that a 4-hour flight is the highlight of my "worldly" travels concerns me greatly.
I think I've fallen into a serious rut lately. Completely scatterbrained, easily frustrated, absolutely no interest in anything, a random trip is exactly what I need. Someplace new, something to make me feel alive and confident again. To restore the beauty of the world to my senses. I think I'm drowning in my own world, choked by time clocks, dress pants, bed pans, dog toys, and pancake mix. I need to get back to the real world, with air and a breeze and light not coming from glass tubes in the ceiling.
I can't even keep my room clean. It never makes it to the standard of clean. Every now and then I perform a mass overhaul and produce something close to "severely cluttered." Never has my bedroom been "clean." I can't think in a perfectly pin-straight room. There's nothing inspiring, nothing creative or unusual. In a messy room there's always something going on. A bright splash of yellow from a shirt on the floor in the corner. The orange tip of a glue bottle on the desk. A braid of pink, blue, and green hair ribbons staining the otherwise pale backdrop of a closet door.Granted, there is a peace and airiness associated with a clean room. Room to grow, space for air to flow, room for the sun to shine in. And walking from the door to the closet without tripping on something or shuffling through piles of unsorted papers would be amazing. I think the basis for not having a clean room is the fact that my mother always cleaned it when I was younger. She said it was so she could check to see if the mail man had come by yet, since my window had a perfect view of the flag on the mail box. I felt that the entire family having access to my bedroom to "check the mailbox flag" was a little invasive. So even as a child of 7, I stopped cleaning my room. It kept people out. If it was uninviting and possibly hazardous to health, it would keep people out. And maybe I still want to keep people out. I have a completely different room now, no view of the mail box, but nonetheless, I want my privacy. I don't know if it's that I like to be able to jump on my bed singing into a hairbrush wearing an old homecoming dress, or if I just don't want other people to see what matters in my life, I want them out. If my room is clean, only the important things are left out. Photos are clearly visible, mementos are displayed prominently. It's like my books, it reveals too much. Well, there's one mystery solved.
I wish I had more time. I want to know who my family was, to be able to answer the time-honored question, "Where are you from?" without a 5-minute explanation. I want to be able to travel and grow, but I want to be home for all the events that may not even happen. I want to paint a picture that doesn't suck, meet somebody who only has a basic grasp of English and a remarkably comforting smile. I want to feel what the rain feels like in Ireland, and see what the stars look like in Greece. I'd go fishing off those black sand beaches, and wish with my whole existence that my dad was with me.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Attempting to update monthly. Short and pointless.
Everybody has a certain place in their life that feels like a part of them. More than "feels like home," the mere thought of this place fills the body with excitement and anticipation and one can't help but smile. A question to regular readers, lurkers, and stumblers-upon: Can one have a memory feel like more than home, or is it destined to be a place that fills one with a feeling of content and peace?
I have both places and memories that ease my soul, shake the cobwebs from my thoughts, and clear the tears from my eyes. I often wonder, is it the memories that make the place, or the place that makes the memories?
My family has held a plot of land of generations, a summer retreat, if you will. I spent most of my youth running wild among the Queen Anne's Lace and clover with Summer rays warming my bare legs and arms. There's a large, steep hill that bottoms out at a creek, and my siblings and I used to take turns flying down the hill on a bike without breaks and catching each other at the bottom before we tumbled into the chilly, swift-moving water. Several times we kids found ourselves explaining our dripping clothes to our displeased mother. At the top of the hill, beside the house, is a garage, seemingly so modern and out-of-place in the rustic, wooded setting, boasting its existence with a rolling garage door that competed with the grass for the brighter shade of green. Within that garage was a treasure-trove of forbidden access. Old tractors, snowmobile runners, batteries, shovels, plows, the left-over mechanics of generations of forgotten projects. We had carved into the hillside room to grow raspberries, pumpkins, zucchini, and sunflowers that towered above our home whose heads weighed 15 pounds at least. Behind the house was a flat plain, perfect for circling four-wheelers, flying kites, setting off fireworks, and staring into the stars. Every summer we dug out a pit and roasted hot dogs, corn, and marshmallows for dinner. A small apple orchard rests hidden in a dip of the hillside like a secret, the apples small, but sweet. Two ponds round out the property, muck-laden and riddled with the "plop," of frogs escaping our eager grasp. No matter how long we sat at the water's edge with our lines and nets, not one fish ever went after our impromptu fishing poles. Tucked beside the road, behind a tall stand of trees, my father built a swing set. He shaved the branches and roots off a fallen tree, wedged and lashed it to the forks of two standing trees, and hung various tires from the top with sturdy rope. Many hours were given to swinging in the tires, sloshing rainwater from their insides, fleeing from a wasp nest, and shrieking as caterpillars dropped from the willow branches and into our hair. As the family aged and we kids began being too busy for vacations, parents too old to make the trip, the property fell into a neglected hideaway. Nearly a dozen years later I made the trip to the old place to investigate reports of a sagging roof from nearby neighbors. I'm sure my traveling companion was appalled by the 1970's style furnishings and lack of a phone and television, but if that's the case I never noticed. I tore through the property shrieking like a child. Was the old log bridge still over the creek? Did the deer still walk right up to the windows at dawn? Was the apple orchard still filled with the scent of blossoms? Did the tires fall from their perch, ropes rotted out after all these years? I spent my entire day smiling and exploring, spending so long in that cold, clear creek that my feet numbed. I picked apples until my hands were sticky with fragrant juice and stared up at the stars until the sun streaked the sky and chased them away.
Am I attached to this place because of the memories, or are my memories so powerful because this place is so magnificent? Why didn't the field mice in the garage and the lack of heat in the house deter me? Was I shrouded by my love and memories? Or is this place so charming that I fell in love all over again?
I have both places and memories that ease my soul, shake the cobwebs from my thoughts, and clear the tears from my eyes. I often wonder, is it the memories that make the place, or the place that makes the memories?
My family has held a plot of land of generations, a summer retreat, if you will. I spent most of my youth running wild among the Queen Anne's Lace and clover with Summer rays warming my bare legs and arms. There's a large, steep hill that bottoms out at a creek, and my siblings and I used to take turns flying down the hill on a bike without breaks and catching each other at the bottom before we tumbled into the chilly, swift-moving water. Several times we kids found ourselves explaining our dripping clothes to our displeased mother. At the top of the hill, beside the house, is a garage, seemingly so modern and out-of-place in the rustic, wooded setting, boasting its existence with a rolling garage door that competed with the grass for the brighter shade of green. Within that garage was a treasure-trove of forbidden access. Old tractors, snowmobile runners, batteries, shovels, plows, the left-over mechanics of generations of forgotten projects. We had carved into the hillside room to grow raspberries, pumpkins, zucchini, and sunflowers that towered above our home whose heads weighed 15 pounds at least. Behind the house was a flat plain, perfect for circling four-wheelers, flying kites, setting off fireworks, and staring into the stars. Every summer we dug out a pit and roasted hot dogs, corn, and marshmallows for dinner. A small apple orchard rests hidden in a dip of the hillside like a secret, the apples small, but sweet. Two ponds round out the property, muck-laden and riddled with the "plop," of frogs escaping our eager grasp. No matter how long we sat at the water's edge with our lines and nets, not one fish ever went after our impromptu fishing poles. Tucked beside the road, behind a tall stand of trees, my father built a swing set. He shaved the branches and roots off a fallen tree, wedged and lashed it to the forks of two standing trees, and hung various tires from the top with sturdy rope. Many hours were given to swinging in the tires, sloshing rainwater from their insides, fleeing from a wasp nest, and shrieking as caterpillars dropped from the willow branches and into our hair. As the family aged and we kids began being too busy for vacations, parents too old to make the trip, the property fell into a neglected hideaway. Nearly a dozen years later I made the trip to the old place to investigate reports of a sagging roof from nearby neighbors. I'm sure my traveling companion was appalled by the 1970's style furnishings and lack of a phone and television, but if that's the case I never noticed. I tore through the property shrieking like a child. Was the old log bridge still over the creek? Did the deer still walk right up to the windows at dawn? Was the apple orchard still filled with the scent of blossoms? Did the tires fall from their perch, ropes rotted out after all these years? I spent my entire day smiling and exploring, spending so long in that cold, clear creek that my feet numbed. I picked apples until my hands were sticky with fragrant juice and stared up at the stars until the sun streaked the sky and chased them away.
Am I attached to this place because of the memories, or are my memories so powerful because this place is so magnificent? Why didn't the field mice in the garage and the lack of heat in the house deter me? Was I shrouded by my love and memories? Or is this place so charming that I fell in love all over again?
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