They say the key to creativity is hiding your sources well, so don't go read 'Rez's blog today, especially not the post about her walk home from work every day.
Anyhoooooo, when my alarm goes off at 5:22 am, I hit snooze once, and lay there, looking out the window at Mt Helix. If Mt Helix is obscured by fog, it won't be too hot that day. But if the fog has already burned off, we're in for it. Then I roll myself out of my bed, and stumble into the bathroom to pee. Then I pull on my sneakers and grab my keys and cell phone and walk out the front door before I'm really even awake. By the time I get about 100 yards from my apartment, my eyes are all the way open. I look for the penny stuck in the cement of someone's driveway, and the leaf imprints in another. I turn the corner onto Renette and look for the calico cat that hides in the bushes there in the morning, and the old lady that waters her roses every other morning but won't make eye contact with me.
I stop briefly to smell the oleander bushes and cross Orange St. I pass an apartment complex I almost rented from a few years back, and I wonder about whether renting that apartment would have changed my life much.
At about this time, my cell phone/back-up alarm goes off with the sound of birds chirping. Often I don't notice it right away because there are birds chirping all around me. Mocking birds, scrub jays, morning doves and crows. I walk a few blocks, passing the house with a rather odd story.
One morning I was walking and saw a man sitting on the curb outside this house. As I approach he straightens up and says, "Jenny?" I said no, I wasn't Jenny but he kept staring at my face. "I had a dream she was coming back to me, that I should go outside and wait for her. Then I saw you, and you have no idea how much you look like her. Up close I can see your eyes are different, but the way you move .................... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you."
I think of that man everytime I pass his house and wonder who Jenny is and why she's gone. Is she an ex-lover that dumped him? A daughter that's missing? A sister that died young?
Then I cross the street over to the park. That park is the earliest memory I have. I remember being two years old and thinking that lawn was the biggest place I'd ever seen. I reflect on the irony that I now circle it every morning. In the next twenty years, what seemingly huge thing will I take in stride without thought?
After all that deep thought, it's necesary to clear my head. I walk up the wheel chair ramp to the top of the playground jungle gym and go down the big slide. Sometimes I'll take the smaller slide, if it looks lonely. I continue around the park, smiling and nodding at the maintence guy cleaning the Rec. Center. I take a quick peak into a room I used to take a dance class in, and remember how free it felt to do tour jete leaps across that room. Then around the corner of park, jogging for a bit, if my knees feel up to it. Then home the way I came, on the other side of the street. I pass a house with an aviary in the yard that I can't see, just hear. Then I pass a little driveway that leads to four houses that all face each other. I call it Windchime Alley, because all four houses seem obsessed with windchimes on their porches, and when the breeze sweeps through, it's coaxes lovely music from them.
Then home, looking forward to my shower.
Anyhoooooo, when my alarm goes off at 5:22 am, I hit snooze once, and lay there, looking out the window at Mt Helix. If Mt Helix is obscured by fog, it won't be too hot that day. But if the fog has already burned off, we're in for it. Then I roll myself out of my bed, and stumble into the bathroom to pee. Then I pull on my sneakers and grab my keys and cell phone and walk out the front door before I'm really even awake. By the time I get about 100 yards from my apartment, my eyes are all the way open. I look for the penny stuck in the cement of someone's driveway, and the leaf imprints in another. I turn the corner onto Renette and look for the calico cat that hides in the bushes there in the morning, and the old lady that waters her roses every other morning but won't make eye contact with me.
I stop briefly to smell the oleander bushes and cross Orange St. I pass an apartment complex I almost rented from a few years back, and I wonder about whether renting that apartment would have changed my life much.
At about this time, my cell phone/back-up alarm goes off with the sound of birds chirping. Often I don't notice it right away because there are birds chirping all around me. Mocking birds, scrub jays, morning doves and crows. I walk a few blocks, passing the house with a rather odd story.
One morning I was walking and saw a man sitting on the curb outside this house. As I approach he straightens up and says, "Jenny?" I said no, I wasn't Jenny but he kept staring at my face. "I had a dream she was coming back to me, that I should go outside and wait for her. Then I saw you, and you have no idea how much you look like her. Up close I can see your eyes are different, but the way you move .................... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you."
I think of that man everytime I pass his house and wonder who Jenny is and why she's gone. Is she an ex-lover that dumped him? A daughter that's missing? A sister that died young?
Then I cross the street over to the park. That park is the earliest memory I have. I remember being two years old and thinking that lawn was the biggest place I'd ever seen. I reflect on the irony that I now circle it every morning. In the next twenty years, what seemingly huge thing will I take in stride without thought?
After all that deep thought, it's necesary to clear my head. I walk up the wheel chair ramp to the top of the playground jungle gym and go down the big slide. Sometimes I'll take the smaller slide, if it looks lonely. I continue around the park, smiling and nodding at the maintence guy cleaning the Rec. Center. I take a quick peak into a room I used to take a dance class in, and remember how free it felt to do tour jete leaps across that room. Then around the corner of park, jogging for a bit, if my knees feel up to it. Then home the way I came, on the other side of the street. I pass a house with an aviary in the yard that I can't see, just hear. Then I pass a little driveway that leads to four houses that all face each other. I call it Windchime Alley, because all four houses seem obsessed with windchimes on their porches, and when the breeze sweeps through, it's coaxes lovely music from them.
Then home, looking forward to my shower.
1 Comments:
No wonder you always have such a bright and cheery outlook on life! Every day you go down a slide! :D
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