As the summer evening settles into being, I pause for a moment on the rocks. I look to the western sky to see a brilliant flurry of light and clouds intermingled to create a spectacular ocean sunset. The orange sky-fire flickers as the masts of sailboats sway in the harbor, manipulating the glowing flames of light as they lick edge of the horizon. Not far away from me, another sailboat is docked at the island. I stare at it for a while before I continue on; stepping from one stone to the next, up then down, to the side and back again. Roaming along the shore is a meditative exercise I am lucky enough to indulge in quite often here; the empty mindedness of planning the next step, and deciding where I am going keeps me centered.
Then, as the brilliant sun falls behind the earth, the blinding orange is replaced by a different light, a nostalgic glow of pink and crimson. My family smiles at me from the dock, and the emerald foliage behind them sways in the evening air. I am reminded in this moment how beautiful life is. The lesson I am taught by this dusk is the pure beauty to be alive. And in this gloaming, I see the brilliance of life.
Yesterday, when my father returned from Minnesota, he gave me a book about Mary, Queen of Scots. I didn't have anything to give back, so I just said "Thanks." My dad gives unusual presents. Sometimes they seem thoughtful, and other times, odd. I have received roses on my birthday, a perfectly normal, sweet gift, and then been given an orange and white and blue dress from a bong shop as an end of school gift. One year my dad gave me a football jersey, and the next I received a Russian military hat, "...just like the one Stalin wore!" dad said, beaming. Another time, dad told me my gift was a day spent just with him. We put up barbed wire around his garden all morning, went to visit his patients in the intensive care unit at the hospital in the afternoon, and to the dump to get bricks and rocks in the evening. It wasn't really what I had in mind for my 5th birthday. I remember wanting to watch a movie, and play ship on our swing set. I remember wanting dolls. But it was all okay, because that night we picked up a pizza and dad let me have a diet coke. For my 16th birthday, I don't think he gave me anything. Sometimes men just run out of ideas...
The examples and description used here give a really vivid picture of what sort of person your dad is and your relationship with him. It's very well written overall, and the 2 quotes you used do a really good job of furthering the mental images. Some bits (such as the last two sentences) seem a little jumpy, but in general it's a very nice piece.
The striker was aggressive, to the point where I would categorize her as bitchy. She had dark hair, deep blue eyes and a bellicose expression plastered on her face at all times. We spent eighty minutes together that monday afternoon, eighty hostile minutes. We shoved and shouldered, pinched and punched until finally I turned to the spoiled Waynflete princess and said "Get the fuck off me you bitch." The second the words rolled off my tongue I knew I had made the wrong decision. I had flipped a switch in the soul of my competitor, she was not the same girl I was playing against a few seconds before. She unleashed another level, a fiery display of what I could only describe as the release of deep and haunting unresolved anger
The most important thing when you get a new pair of shoes is to get them dirty as quickly as possible. Their job is to touch the ground; trying to keep them spotless is a pointless chore. Dirty shoes have character. The scuffs and stains and holes make them special. My favorite pair of shoes have a huge white paint stain on the toe, the colors are beginning to smear, the laces are filthy and frayed to the point where I can barely get them through the lace holes. I think they're lovely.
There is a baked bean factory across back cove. I can see it from the parking lot of Cheverus high school, which is where I frequently come to relax. There is a very average bridge with very average cars on it. The fishy smell of low tide crawls from the water and to where I am sitting. Pillars of black smoke are drifting up from the chimney of the factory. Several cans and bags are strewn by the shore. I do not particularly care about the environment, I leave that up to everyone else, but this is not exactly a beautiful sight. But there I am, the Jew sitting in the Catholic school parking lot, and finding myself happier here than anywhere else.
Alright gather 'round young'uns I have a story to speech you. Once upon a time, in the middle of winter 2011-2012, I went to a dance at Casco Bay Highschool to dance away the winter blues I experience in the middle of winter. I don't remember the theme, but I do remember bright lights in the dark accentuated by black lights, people in white or neon or bright juicy colored clothes, and loud-thumping, bass-dropping white noise and crazy techno sounds. So it must have been a rave. I remember getting there right on time with a friend or two, walking through the doors to the main dance area and stuff. Walk through a dark, poorly-lit hallway and you got to a quad-tipped fork in the hall where you could go to several different places, one of which was the dancefloor. The other auxiliary rooms were a separate room for pictures and I guessed relaxing, as well as some snacks. There was also an area with couches and comfy loveseats for sitting on. I spent most of my time here because the dancefloor was actually a bit boring and the music sounded the same over and over and over again, particularly because they kept playing Scary Monsters Nice Sprites. Also dancing was a bit lame, there was a crap-multitude of grinding. One step towards the crowd of grinders and grindees was like stepping into an awkward sensual meet-and-greet between boys who have been locked in a room with suggestive entertainment magazines, and . I feared for my life and my ass, that I might step in the wrong place as a guy tried to grind some chick. Luckily it never happened, but regardless I kept my distance. After a while I did try to dance a bit, mainly swing my head this ways and there-ward, but all that body spazzing got tiring, so I retired to the living room
The big girl loved the little girl, she loved her soft cheeks and crooked teeth and adoring light eyes. The big girl’s dolls loved the little girl too, they loved her gentle fingers and wild stories, although neither the big girl nor her dolls liked it when the little girl chopped their bangs with dull scissors, leaving them sticking up straight like sharp spikes. And the little girl loved the big girl back. But the little girl was only a baby, the big girl said to herself, over and over again. The little girl was not a princess yet, she didn’t have a right to enter the room with the round table, where the beautiful maidens would gather and giggle as though they really were all grown up, even when they weren’t even close. The little girl was so small, so childish, and didn’t understand. The maidens scoffed at the little sprite’s cries, and when the queen, with a wide kind face and golden hair one shade lighter than the big girl’s told that that they must include her, the big girl whined like the princess with the pea under her mattress, but still the queen would not relent.
They came from Boston and Lynn and Chelsea and Scarborough and Saco and Bridgton and Bangor and Falmouth and Freeport and one even came from Bhutan. Whether there by choice, for the sake of tradition, or in the interest of social propriety, they streamed into my field and ate and drank (heavily) and joked and mingled and swam and played baseball and fell asleep at 3 am tired like the dead branches of the pine trees that surrounded them.
Life is confusing upside down. I lay on the grass, stretching my quads, looking back as if to get my eyeballs inthe back of my head. Two kids are passing a ball around, and I watch it travel through like a parabola through the air (one plotted on the y-axis where p>0, of course). I take this view point seriously and try to imagine what life would be like were it flipped upside down. The ball seems to defy gravity, to defy the very "facts" of life that I have known -- the ball is kicked downwards, and rises. A whistle is blown. "Circle up boys!" I stand up and suddenly the world seems a little less interesting.
Pennies thrown into a stream sink to the bottom and shimmer brightly under the crystalline water. Leaves fall down towards them and stay at the top, suspended in thin air. The full moon illuminates the setting with an airy brilliance. My mothers hair is frozen by the cold, and the ski trails off to the West shine brightly under the smiling moon. The snow is as reflective as a mirror.
As the summer evening settles into being, I pause for a moment on the rocks. I look to the western sky to see a brilliant flurry of light and clouds intermingled to create a spectacular ocean sunset. The orange sky-fire flickers as the masts of sailboats sway in the harbor, manipulating the glowing flames of light as they lick edge of the horizon. Not far away from me, another sailboat is docked at the island. I stare at it for a while before I continue on; stepping from one stone to the next, up then down, to the side and back again. Roaming along the shore is a meditative exercise I am lucky enough to indulge in quite often here; the empty mindedness of planning the next step, and deciding where I am going keeps me centered.
ReplyDeleteThen, as the brilliant sun falls behind the earth, the blinding orange is replaced by a different light, a nostalgic glow of pink and crimson. My family smiles at me from the dock, and the emerald foliage behind them sways in the evening air. I am reminded in this moment how beautiful life is. The lesson I am taught by this dusk is the pure beauty to be alive. And in this gloaming, I see the brilliance of life.
Yesterday, when my father returned from Minnesota, he gave me a book about Mary, Queen of Scots. I didn't have anything to give back, so I just said "Thanks." My dad gives unusual presents. Sometimes they seem thoughtful, and other times, odd. I have received roses on my birthday, a perfectly normal, sweet gift, and then been given an orange and white and blue dress from a bong shop as an end of school gift. One year my dad gave me a football jersey, and the next I received a Russian military hat, "...just like the one Stalin wore!" dad said, beaming. Another time, dad told me my gift was a day spent just with him. We put up barbed wire around his garden all morning, went to visit his patients in the intensive care unit at the hospital in the afternoon, and to the dump to get bricks and rocks in the evening. It wasn't really what I had in mind for my 5th birthday. I remember wanting to watch a movie, and play ship on our swing set. I remember wanting dolls. But it was all okay, because that night we picked up a pizza and dad let me have a diet coke. For my 16th birthday, I don't think he gave me anything. Sometimes men just run out of ideas...
ReplyDeleteThe examples and description used here give a really vivid picture of what sort of person your dad is and your relationship with him. It's very well written overall, and the 2 quotes you used do a really good job of furthering the mental images. Some bits (such as the last two sentences) seem a little jumpy, but in general it's a very nice piece.
DeleteThe striker was aggressive, to the point where I would categorize her as bitchy. She had dark hair, deep blue eyes and a bellicose expression plastered on her face at all times. We spent eighty minutes together that monday afternoon, eighty hostile minutes. We shoved and shouldered, pinched and punched until finally I turned to the spoiled Waynflete princess and said "Get the fuck off me you bitch." The second the words rolled off my tongue I knew I had made the wrong decision. I had flipped a switch in the soul of my competitor, she was not the same girl I was playing against a few seconds before. She unleashed another level, a fiery display of what I could only describe as the release of deep and haunting unresolved anger
ReplyDeleteThe most important thing when you get a new pair of shoes is to get them dirty as quickly as possible. Their job is to touch the ground; trying to keep them spotless is a pointless chore. Dirty shoes have character. The scuffs and stains and holes make them special. My favorite pair of shoes have a huge white paint stain on the toe, the colors are beginning to smear, the laces are filthy and frayed to the point where I can barely get them through the lace holes. I think they're lovely.
ReplyDeleteThere is a baked bean factory across back cove. I can see it from the parking lot of Cheverus high school, which is where I frequently come to relax. There is a very average bridge with very average cars on it. The fishy smell of low tide crawls from the water and to where I am sitting. Pillars of black smoke are drifting up from the chimney of the factory. Several cans and bags are strewn by the shore. I do not particularly care about the environment, I leave that up to everyone else, but this is not exactly a beautiful sight. But there I am, the Jew sitting in the Catholic school parking lot, and finding myself happier here than anywhere else.
ReplyDeleteAlright gather 'round young'uns I have a story to speech you. Once upon a time, in the middle of winter 2011-2012, I went to a dance at Casco Bay Highschool to dance away the winter blues I experience in the middle of winter. I don't remember the theme, but I do remember bright lights in the dark accentuated by black lights, people in white or neon or bright juicy colored clothes, and loud-thumping, bass-dropping white noise and crazy techno sounds. So it must have been a rave. I remember getting there right on time with a friend or two, walking through the doors to the main dance area and stuff. Walk through a dark, poorly-lit hallway and you got to a quad-tipped fork in the hall where you could go to several different places, one of which was the dancefloor. The other auxiliary rooms were a separate room for pictures and I guessed relaxing, as well as some snacks. There was also an area with couches and comfy loveseats for sitting on. I spent most of my time here because the dancefloor was actually a bit boring and the music sounded the same over and over and over again, particularly because they kept playing Scary Monsters Nice Sprites. Also dancing was a bit lame, there was a crap-multitude of grinding. One step towards the crowd of grinders and grindees was like stepping into an awkward sensual meet-and-greet between boys who have been locked in a room with suggestive entertainment magazines, and . I feared for my life and my ass, that I might step in the wrong place as a guy tried to grind some chick. Luckily it never happened, but regardless I kept my distance. After a while I did try to dance a bit, mainly swing my head this ways and there-ward, but all that body spazzing got tiring, so I retired to the living room
ReplyDeleteThe big girl loved the little girl, she loved her soft cheeks and crooked teeth and adoring light eyes. The big girl’s dolls loved the little girl too, they loved her gentle fingers and wild stories, although neither the big girl nor her dolls liked it when the little girl chopped their bangs with dull scissors, leaving them sticking up straight like sharp spikes. And the little girl loved the big girl back.
ReplyDeleteBut the little girl was only a baby, the big girl said to herself, over and over again. The little girl was not a princess yet, she didn’t have a right to enter the room with the round table, where the beautiful maidens would gather and giggle as though they really were all grown up, even when they weren’t even close. The little girl was so small, so childish, and didn’t understand. The maidens scoffed at the little sprite’s cries, and when the queen, with a wide kind face and golden hair one shade lighter than the big girl’s told that that they must include her, the big girl whined like the princess with the pea under her mattress, but still the queen would not relent.
They came from Boston and Lynn and Chelsea and Scarborough and Saco and Bridgton and Bangor and Falmouth and Freeport and one even came from Bhutan. Whether there by choice, for the sake of tradition, or in the interest of social propriety, they streamed into my field and ate and drank (heavily) and joked and mingled and swam and played baseball and fell asleep at 3 am tired like the dead branches of the pine trees that surrounded them.
ReplyDeleteLife is confusing upside down. I lay on the grass, stretching my quads, looking back as if to get my eyeballs inthe back of my head. Two kids are passing a ball around, and I watch it travel through like a parabola through the air (one plotted on the y-axis where p>0, of course). I take this view point seriously and try to imagine what life would be like were it flipped upside down. The ball seems to defy gravity, to defy the very "facts" of life that I have known -- the ball is kicked downwards, and rises. A whistle is blown. "Circle up boys!" I stand up and suddenly the world seems a little less interesting.
ReplyDeletePennies thrown into a stream sink to the bottom and shimmer brightly under the crystalline water. Leaves fall down towards them and stay at the top, suspended in thin air. The full moon illuminates the setting with an airy brilliance. My mothers hair is frozen by the cold, and the ski trails off to the West shine brightly under the smiling moon. The snow is as reflective as a mirror.
ReplyDelete