Hello!
Dear Reader,
I feel like I should be saying “Let me introduce myself”, or “It’s a pleasure to finally write you”, or any other clichéd beginning to a written relationship. You would like to know who I am. What I do. I understand, truly. But I don’t want to start there.
I won’t tell you “who” or “what” or “when” or “how.”
But I will tell you “why”.
“Why” starts yesterday, when three men were struggling to fit the new vending machine through the door to the office. Their oversized diesel truck purred outside the window, snorting the sticky scent of clotting engine grease. The men performed their machismo dance to it: slope shoulders, shuffle sideways, strain sinews. “Lift from the knees” as a tribal ballad. And with each step, cut-grass-engine-oil-hot-pavement-cinnamon-sweat drifted around them. The smell was so cloying that I couldn’t breathe. I left to get some air, and by the time I got back the men were gone and the vending machine nestled in the basement.
“Why” was the week before high school started, when my mother and grandmother took me up to Alexandria Bay (one last trip together before I’m too old for multi-generational outings), and we went to an antique shop that specialized in the ancient. The shopkeeper was gregarious, gesturing grandly these are Roman coins, this is from Africa, you like that? It’s a thousand years old. He beckoned us to a back room (the best, all the best is in here). Mom and Grandma, eyes glazing, were swept up in his wake. I followed more slowly. With each step, my nose filed with the scent of blood, until I could taste copper and iron. At the lintel, I hit something. Not a table or a wayward stool. I physically could not take a step farther. The shopkeeper looked back at me, over-sharp eyes glinting. Alexandria Bay is famous for its pirates.
“Why” happened while I was lying on my parents’ bed, listening to Dad play Carole King’s “Far Away.” Mom sang along, laughing at each lyrical fumble. Dad’s fingers pounded out the chords, too hard and too methodical, but then there would be a little skip, a trip between notes, a beat where there wasn’t supposed to be one. So natural, giddy with the melancholy lyrics and my mom’s wistful, giggling voice. And that was musical talent, something I could imitate over and over but never quite grasp, something living between the bars, something to bask in while it was still there.
“Why” is when someone puts too much anise in the biscotti, so your mouth fills with bitter licorice and the clear knowledge that you will never eat a cookie as perfect as the ones that Aunt Gloria baked.
“Why” ends at the beginning, with blurry half-sights—wooden shoes in a shop window; chocolate floating like seaweed on top of milk; fireflies igniting a hillside; purple gravel; an albino woman with long white curls; fake-fur leggings; bubbling wasp nests; a completely bark-less tree; thumb-sized bronze plates; shoe-box mansions; a Mobius strip orange peel.
I can’t answer all your questions.
Sincerely,
CM
I feel like I should be saying “Let me introduce myself”, or “It’s a pleasure to finally write you”, or any other clichéd beginning to a written relationship. You would like to know who I am. What I do. I understand, truly. But I don’t want to start there.
I won’t tell you “who” or “what” or “when” or “how.”
But I will tell you “why”.
“Why” starts yesterday, when three men were struggling to fit the new vending machine through the door to the office. Their oversized diesel truck purred outside the window, snorting the sticky scent of clotting engine grease. The men performed their machismo dance to it: slope shoulders, shuffle sideways, strain sinews. “Lift from the knees” as a tribal ballad. And with each step, cut-grass-engine-oil-hot-pavement-cinnamon-sweat drifted around them. The smell was so cloying that I couldn’t breathe. I left to get some air, and by the time I got back the men were gone and the vending machine nestled in the basement.
“Why” was the week before high school started, when my mother and grandmother took me up to Alexandria Bay (one last trip together before I’m too old for multi-generational outings), and we went to an antique shop that specialized in the ancient. The shopkeeper was gregarious, gesturing grandly these are Roman coins, this is from Africa, you like that? It’s a thousand years old. He beckoned us to a back room (the best, all the best is in here). Mom and Grandma, eyes glazing, were swept up in his wake. I followed more slowly. With each step, my nose filed with the scent of blood, until I could taste copper and iron. At the lintel, I hit something. Not a table or a wayward stool. I physically could not take a step farther. The shopkeeper looked back at me, over-sharp eyes glinting. Alexandria Bay is famous for its pirates.
“Why” happened while I was lying on my parents’ bed, listening to Dad play Carole King’s “Far Away.” Mom sang along, laughing at each lyrical fumble. Dad’s fingers pounded out the chords, too hard and too methodical, but then there would be a little skip, a trip between notes, a beat where there wasn’t supposed to be one. So natural, giddy with the melancholy lyrics and my mom’s wistful, giggling voice. And that was musical talent, something I could imitate over and over but never quite grasp, something living between the bars, something to bask in while it was still there.
“Why” is when someone puts too much anise in the biscotti, so your mouth fills with bitter licorice and the clear knowledge that you will never eat a cookie as perfect as the ones that Aunt Gloria baked.
“Why” ends at the beginning, with blurry half-sights—wooden shoes in a shop window; chocolate floating like seaweed on top of milk; fireflies igniting a hillside; purple gravel; an albino woman with long white curls; fake-fur leggings; bubbling wasp nests; a completely bark-less tree; thumb-sized bronze plates; shoe-box mansions; a Mobius strip orange peel.
I can’t answer all your questions.
Sincerely,
CM