Grey Morning
Grey opens to silver
Wings brush the dust off branches
Soothing, softly against the leaves
Mists float above the grasses
So still the air
So soft, the light
So true and real
I might learn
Much from the quiet
Seeing Characters Everywhere & Saving the World
I think I saw Toulouse Lautrec at my kid’s basketball practice the other day. I also saw the Elephant Man at the hardware store. I am pretty sure Houdini was at my other kid’s soccer game, coaching for the other team. Van Gogh was selling hot dogs from a cart. This was not Montmartre in Paris nor was it a dream.
This could be an everyday occurrence; seeing characters everywhere. It takes an open mind, not shutting out any possibility. Amelia Earhart delivering mail on a rural route. Mata Hari driving a taxi in the city. Bela Lugosi a small town plumber. Orson Wells picking up garbage.
I have seen these things. Or at least imagined them in my waking life. Am I having a breakdown? Am I susceptible to flights of fancy because I’m a writer? I don’t think so, though you can never be sure, can you? I like to think I’m just in touch with my creative side.
Just because we’re not all famous doesn’t mean we don’t all have ideas or fantasies or dreams. The grocery clerk stocking shelves could be wishing he were handling important items like gold bars at Fort Knox. The traveling salesman with sample cases in his trunk could be fantasizing he’s a secret agent with state secrets to deliver at his next stop. The housewife doing her umpteenth load of laundry that month could come up with an ingenious idea for a folding machine.
We are capable of showing imagination. That’s a gift that gets tucked away in a closet, often unused and forgotten or at the least, taken for granted. Somehow as we “grow up,” that gets beaten out of us by real life. It becomes harder and harder to find shapes in the clouds or stories in strangers’ faces. But just open your eyes sometime. There are possibilities amidst the absurdity of the everyday. Are you really going to let yourself get lost in balancing a checkbook? Meeting a deadline? Deciding what’s for dinner? Are we really so small that it has to be one or the other? Grow up or make believe?
No. If that were so, we would not have need of movies or novels or music. We often say we “lose” ourselves in a book or movie or song, but I think that’s where we find a part of ourselves. The part than can imagine, create, believe.
So if I want to imagine the UPS delivery guy is coming to sweep me off my feet or the student teacher in my kid’s class is a spy or a neighbor is in the witness protection program, let me go. I just may come up with something wonderful. At least I’ll entertain myself. If we could all entertain ourselves a bit more and be open to the creativity of others, wouldn’t that help us all get along better?
I don’t always write with a message, but I think this one is clear: daydreaming may just save the world.
Vintage Watch
Vintage Watch
He was feeling on top of the world. That always sounded like such a stupid phrase before today. Especially since he usually felt he looked at the world through a skewed scope from the ground up. But now he found himself looking at the tops of skyscrapers and ruminating about the shapes of clouds. Things are definitely looking up, he thought to himself.
As he walked, he found he needed some air and some elbow room so he turned off the crowded sidewalk and onto a quieter alley with faded signs and some old cars parked on one side. He looked at the dingy shop windows as he walked. Old books. A record store. A coffee shop. Old suitcases and things. A tailor. Wait. Back up. What was that next to the old suitcase? He stopped and looked in the window. A watch. Why did it look so familiar? He found himself walking into the shop as if his feet were moving of their own volition.
The cozy smell of musty old attic permeated his nostrils. Specks of dust floated in the air like snowflakes. He gave a cursory look to the baubles and umbrellas and books and hats and shoes and pipes and photographs and pennants and scarves and glasses and watches and… there it was. The watch in the window. He looked around for someone to wait on him. He heard some rustling near the rear of the store so he just waited and looked at the watch. It wasn’t moving but somehow he knew how the ticking would sound. He didn’t touch it but somehow he knew the weight of it on his wrist. He could almost recall how the small scratch on the left side of the face had gotten there.
Suddenly the shopkeeper spoke to him, asking if he’d like to try it on. He nodded. The clerk took the watch from the display, held it for a moment, and then handed it over. The man put it on his wrist, fastening the band. The clerk said something about how it looked good on him or he wore it well or something like that. He wasn’t really listening. He was hearing… music? Had Big Band been playing on the radio when he walked in?
He thanked the old shopkeeper and walked out of the shop. It took maybe 35 seconds (the watch had just needed a good winding) for the man to realize something had shifted. Something was different. When he stopped admiring his wrist accoutrement, he looked up. Holy shit! Was he dreaming? Hallucinating? It was as if he was looking at an old issue of LIFE magazine. Everything looked clean, new. The buildings looked washed. Men wore hats and ties. Women had tailored dresses and heels. The cars looked vintage…1940-something. Was he on a movie set? He looked around for a camera crew, ready to apologize for walking in a shot, possibly ruining a take, but he saw no cameras.
Instead he saw people walking briskly by him, some tipping their hats, some smiling a quick smile. He walked a few paces then turned around. The shop was still there. The shopkeeper was looking at him through the window. Then he was gone. Wait. There he was at the door. The man went to him and raised his eyebrows as if to say, what the hell? Do you see this too? The man spoke.
“Try it on for three days. That’s our policy. You’ve got three days to find if it’s a good fit or all can be returned.”
The man looked again at his wrist. He knew the clerk wasn’t just talking about the watch. He also knew somehow that he was home. Modern living had never appealed to him. He didn’t like the disheveled state of the world he had left behind. He knew there was still hope in this decade. People hadn’t lost hope yet. He at least could hope here.
He nodded again, not finding a voice to ask the myriad questions cropping up in his head. He continued walking, marveling at how familiar the scene looked to him. He knew the shops and could recall most of the owners’ names. He neared the crossroads, not sure what the busy city street he had originally turned off would look like now. It was still busy. But slower. People didn’t seem to be in such a hurry. And it was quieter. The whole atmosphere was more polite.
He went directly to the coffee shop he knew from the next block and sat at the counter. Ordered coffee. When the waitress asked if he wanted pie, he declined. But she added that it was his favorite, apple pie. When he looked into her eyes, he saw a familiar gleam and said yes to the pie.
Waiting For a Bus
Waiting For the Bus
He drew his coat collar in closer. He blew a moment’s worth of warmth into his scarf before the cold wind whipped through him again. He hurried as he knew the bus stop with the protective plastic enclosure was in the next block. It was cold, with light flurries floating in the night air adding just enough magic to make it feel he was in a movie.
As he walked the quiet street, passing only a few people and seeing only a few taxis and cars, he imagined himself as a character in a movie. Maybe an action movie. Yeah, he’d take a cab and end up embroiled in an exciting car chase. Nah. A crime drama suited his mood better, starting with breaking up a robbery in progress at the local bodega. Hmmm. Nope. He didn’t feel up to any car chase excitement or possible violence to his person.
He could see the dim lights and garish signage of the bus stop just ahead. As he approached, he noticed someone sitting on the bench bundled in a puffy coat huddled over an ereader. He noticed the rugged but small boots. A woman, with dark hair curling out from underneath her knit hat. She glanced up as he neared and he was met with the clearest blue eyes he had ever seen. They reminded him of his favorite Crayola crayon, “Robin’s Egg Blue.” Then she smiled. A slightly crooked, bright, beautiful smile. He reflexively smiled back, hoping for less of a Goofy grin and more of a Cary Grant cool smirk. In the movie reel in his head, he was fresh off a crime caper and was heading into the requisite romantic scene.
Except he didn’t know his lines. This was his big break. The meet-cute. The part where they would exchange witty banter and saunter off in the fog together from here to eternity. He tried to rummage through his brain for a good opener, but could only think of B-movie cheesy pick-up lines. What would Bogart have said? He hoped his silence would come off as a stoic Gary Cooper but feared his sneering smirk and staring gaze was more of a creepy Peter Lorre.
OK. He needed to get a grip. This was not the Golden Age of cinema. This was real life with all its grit and glory and discomfort and exhilaration. He was just a guy waiting for a bus. And she was just a girl waiting for a bus. No big deal. She was a beauty though, he thought as he surreptitiously glanced her way again. Could he be happy with himself if he passed up this chance at real magic?
He took his hands out of his pockets to check his watch and as he did, a little notepad fell out. He didn’t realize until he saw her reaching that it had fallen open, face-up. Before he could move, she had picked it up and had glanced at the page in front of her.
“Poetry?” she asked with a musical, husky voice that felt like warm caramel to his ears and she looked up at him with those eyes. “Yours?”
“Uh, yeah,” he replied, pleased to force some sound from his throat.
“Are you a writer?” she asked.
“Sort of. A hobby. I’m a computer programmer,” he answered. “Mostly web stuff. And some games.”
“I write too. Well, I’m in advertising in my real life but I write songs,” she said. And smiled up at him.
“Do you sing?” he asked as he moved to sit on the bench near her.
“Not really, but a friend of mine sometimes throws my songs in her sets at a bar near here.”
“Has anyone recorded your stuff?” he asked.
“Nah. I really just do it for fun. Not too serious at this point.” She handed him his notebook. “Do you have stuff published?”
“Well, uh, yeah, actually,” he stumbled, wondering why he was suddenly nervous. Would she think it pansy of him to have published books of poetry? And if so, why did he care? She was cute and he wanted to feel macho, that’s why, he reasoned.
He cleared his throat and opted for truth and optimism. “I’ve had two books of poems published and I’m working on my first full-length novel.”
He waited to hear disapproval or at least detect disinterest just like when he talked about writing with his family or his coworkers. He was pleasantly surprised to find neither. She seemed to almost bubble with excitement. Like Carole Lombard or Claudette Colbert.
Except she was better. She was real. In Technicolor. He realized how cold he was after he saw her shivering. Checking his watch, he noticed the bus was late. He asked if maybe she’d like to join him for a drink at her friend’s bar. She said sure. It made him feel like a matinee idol, walking a quiet city street on a snowy night with a beautiful woman. The night was full of promise.
They could not stop finding things to talk about, laugh about. With each moment, he felt warmer. In his head, the movie would end as they left the cold behind, walked into the smoky bar together with the musical score a cool jazz.
Plaid Thoughts
Plaid Thoughts
She opened her little plaid journal and positioned her pen carefully. This had fast become one of the favorite parts of her day. A brand new page lay blank in wait for her imagination. She could do and be anything in just a few words! Drawing, writing, doodling. Collecting clippings that she found interesting. The journal had become her friend, a repository for her most private thoughts. It was of course to mean so much more later.
She felt a whole world of her own making could be conveyed if she could just figure out what her inner voice had to say. It spoke to her all the time; would it speak to others as well?
She sighed, shifted in her chair, leaned her elbows on the desk and began to write.
She wrote about what she saw, how she felt. She wrote things she hoped to see, hoped to someday feel. Since she was so young, she knew people might not take her seriously. After all, who would want to read the musings of a teenage girl?
Big thoughts about life and love and little thoughts about clothes and hairstyles all found their way into the book. She grew. And grew. Her body, her mind, her imagination. She felt she would outgrow the confines of her small space if not for her journal. Somehow some paper and ink kept her grounded; reminding her of what she felt mattered. Her writing touched on a newfound interest in boys as well as more philosophical matters like the good and evil she saw in the world. She had dreams of her stories being published. She wrote about things and people she knew; cleverly changing names so as not to risk anyone thinking her work too personal. From the real in all its grit came some beauty in fantasy.
After filling up many pages, she began to look them over, making subtle changes in case someone someday did indeed decide her thoughts were indeed fit for public consumption. She crinkled her nose in disgust at some sections, laughed aloud at others, felt embarrassed at some passages, elated that her imagination had shown through it all.
The tenor of her writing changed over time. The darkness that had remained a distant threat for so long was edging closer to her world. She could find solace in her plaid notebook for a short while but could only hold evil at bay for so long. Before the end, she wrote as any teen would, of making friends, loving boys, arguing with mothers, finding no wrong with fathers. She wrote of the good that she saw every day even as things were falling apart all around her. She wrote as though she was pressed for time to get out all her dreams and thoughts quickly before she forgot them or before she was forgotten.
She was not forgotten. Her journal was discovered, shared. As with any plaid pattern, such as the one of her notebook, the lines of several people’s lives and experiences intersected and meshed and coordinated to form a patterned story of hope amidst horror. Her story has been shared with the world so broadly that children hearing of her think of her as a character, not a real person. But look closely at some of the photographs. She was awkward but beautiful. Read carefully. She was young but intuitively adroit at expression and description.
I was recently given a small plaid notebook from someone who doesn’t know how Anne Frank touched me as a child. Reading thoughts so similar to my own from someone who existed thirty years before I was born was a revelation. Maybe I felt a connection because I was an awkward youth. Maybe it was the odd fact that stuck with me that she and I share a birthday. Whatever sparked my interest in her and her writing, I learned as a youngster that storytelling was important. I use my notebook to take notes for future stories and to jot down quotes I like. We can all find some means of expression no matter what the swirling activity of the world exists around us. Like Anne, I want to be hopeful and share my thoughts and dreams instead of being brought down by darkness.
The Word Rummager 