Showing posts with label friendship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label friendship. Show all posts
Friday, March 12, 2010
Best of the Best
Everyone loves you and we all know it. You're a breath of summer in a deadly winter, a gust of fresh air. You are a bright, yellow sun, rolling across a blue, cloudless sky. You flop my frown around, you remind me things are good, you always make my day--you always know just what to say. In every situation you are the voice of reason, always sensible, always cautious. I can always count on you, and I know I can trust you. I'm glad you feel like you can trust me too. Adventure in a can: pull the top open and out you pop, ready to sweep me away to wherever you're going, determined to have fun while you're at it. Even on the most serious business trips. You are insurmountable and unstoppable, never allowing any obstacle to overcome you, never letting go of the promises you've made. Not to yourself, and not to others. You've shown me truly, and much more deeply than anyone else, exactly what friendship is; so now I don't have to be afaid to fall anymore, because I know there's someone down below, watching, ready to catch me. I don't have to be afraid to be left behind: Wherever you go, whatever you do, follow your heart, and I'll be right beside you. Should something happen and I never see you again, rest assured, and remember that you will always be my friend.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Feels Like Home
Lying in the dry, dead grass, late on a chill but sunny day. The first of March, I realize, watching clouds drift by above me; and below me, miles and miles of open, flat land. Like a desert. A desert where whithered yellow runs forever, melting together with bright blue sky on the horizion, and the pale sun is the warmest thing I can touch or feel.
Neighborhoods flash by like pictures, bleeding by me like a blur of memories I can barely recall. Something happened. Once. Something that just slightly creeps in from the corner of my mind, like the sun rising over the earth, light falling across the moon.
I don't know when I fell in love with this city. I don't know how or why; such a cold thing, this city. So dirty and uncaring, so unlikely to forgive. Here, I must always have my eyes open, constantly watching, for if I shut them, even more a moment, this place will fold in around me, enclosing me in darkness, danger and fear. And yet there is nowhere on earth I'd rather be. This city is my friend, my family, my home. Most of all that I love or want resides here; it is a place of dreams and indescribably desires. A place to start a new life.
I turn onto my side, grass clinging to my clothes, twined through my hair, and I can see it in the distance. A hazy, gray block on the horizon, skyscrapers jutting into the blue, stabbing it. Reminding the rest of the world of how the west was won.
Flash forward one hour; we're cruising past leafless trees with rough, colorless bark; I see images, moving so quickly it's like they're running by me, rather than me rushing through them. I see children playing in the street, men walking dogs, women pushing strollers. I see drug pushers and hobos and businessmen with tidy suitcases and sharp suits. And the blood pounds in my veins, just to hear the music and remember, and to know that there's nothing like friendship.
There's nothing like freedom on a Monday afternoon when all the kids are in school; nothing like just being with somebody-the best friend you didn't know existed-and talking and relating and simply being real. Simply being there for one another. Something about it takes me back. I don't know what it is about this day, but something makes me remember other days, long gone by, when life was simpler, and I was younger, and all life's opportunities were just hovering out their, like fat, red apples just waiting to be plucked. Something feels like home.
Now the sun is setting in the west, ducking down behind far-off buildings and sinking into white-capped mountains. I'm sitting beside you, and I'm not sure I've ever felt like this before. Whatever this feeling is, I don't want it to go away. I don't want to wake tomorrow and find that these emotions we're sharing fled with the stars. Because I like this. The way it feels to have you beside me, against me, the warmth of your hands, the brush of your nose. Even when I close my eyes I can still taste you, hear your boyish laugh in my ear. And I've never felt so small, so delicate, so feminine. I've never felt so beautiful.
Maybe some day, that feeling will disappear. It might fade into the morning. But come what may, there shall never be something more romantic to me than listening to you breathe beneath the Denver sun, and stretching out on the grass in your arms. For now there is only this memory, and only this hope for tomorrow and the day that follows.
There is only a wildly beating, girlish heart that reaches out with inexperienced fingers to grasp smooth leather, and holds on tightly, until the sun is gone.
Neighborhoods flash by like pictures, bleeding by me like a blur of memories I can barely recall. Something happened. Once. Something that just slightly creeps in from the corner of my mind, like the sun rising over the earth, light falling across the moon.
I don't know when I fell in love with this city. I don't know how or why; such a cold thing, this city. So dirty and uncaring, so unlikely to forgive. Here, I must always have my eyes open, constantly watching, for if I shut them, even more a moment, this place will fold in around me, enclosing me in darkness, danger and fear. And yet there is nowhere on earth I'd rather be. This city is my friend, my family, my home. Most of all that I love or want resides here; it is a place of dreams and indescribably desires. A place to start a new life.
I turn onto my side, grass clinging to my clothes, twined through my hair, and I can see it in the distance. A hazy, gray block on the horizon, skyscrapers jutting into the blue, stabbing it. Reminding the rest of the world of how the west was won.
Flash forward one hour; we're cruising past leafless trees with rough, colorless bark; I see images, moving so quickly it's like they're running by me, rather than me rushing through them. I see children playing in the street, men walking dogs, women pushing strollers. I see drug pushers and hobos and businessmen with tidy suitcases and sharp suits. And the blood pounds in my veins, just to hear the music and remember, and to know that there's nothing like friendship.
There's nothing like freedom on a Monday afternoon when all the kids are in school; nothing like just being with somebody-the best friend you didn't know existed-and talking and relating and simply being real. Simply being there for one another. Something about it takes me back. I don't know what it is about this day, but something makes me remember other days, long gone by, when life was simpler, and I was younger, and all life's opportunities were just hovering out their, like fat, red apples just waiting to be plucked. Something feels like home.
Now the sun is setting in the west, ducking down behind far-off buildings and sinking into white-capped mountains. I'm sitting beside you, and I'm not sure I've ever felt like this before. Whatever this feeling is, I don't want it to go away. I don't want to wake tomorrow and find that these emotions we're sharing fled with the stars. Because I like this. The way it feels to have you beside me, against me, the warmth of your hands, the brush of your nose. Even when I close my eyes I can still taste you, hear your boyish laugh in my ear. And I've never felt so small, so delicate, so feminine. I've never felt so beautiful.
Maybe some day, that feeling will disappear. It might fade into the morning. But come what may, there shall never be something more romantic to me than listening to you breathe beneath the Denver sun, and stretching out on the grass in your arms. For now there is only this memory, and only this hope for tomorrow and the day that follows.
There is only a wildly beating, girlish heart that reaches out with inexperienced fingers to grasp smooth leather, and holds on tightly, until the sun is gone.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Ok, Newbie GO
Saturdays really clip along at the hobby shop. There's people pouring in and trickling out slowly, wandering through the ailes for hour after hour. Today, one woman approached the cash register and announced rather fecklessly that she had lost her husband.
"Caboose Hobbies: Stealing Husbands since 1938."
It's strange to be the one behind the counter for once. Strange to be the one counting the money out, worrying about giving back the incorrect amount of change rather than getting it. Strange to be the one fumbling with the bag while they stand there, holding the credit card. It's strange to be the one who has to have all the answers, and difficult to not have any.
The strangest part though, by far, is to be the 'new kid.' I've always been so comfortable with where I am and who I'm with, it's difficult for me to be in a learning situation, especially when no one is learning along side me. I can't help feel embarassed when I make a mistake or I have to ask my coworkers to explain something--again.However, I like to feel that I'm a fast learner, so I convince myself that I'm doing well. I've memorized most of my coworker's names, and I have the art of cashiering pretty well covered.
There are still a lot of bugs to work out of my not-so-skilled technique, but there's time to learn them.
Plenty of time.
Paul has worked at the hobby store for four years, Mara for five, Antje for God knows how long. I hopefully won't be there for more than two.Just two more. Two more to scan and smile, even when I don't want to. To scan and wish strangers a nice day, like a robot. Two years before I graduate and go away.
This is not my career. This is just my job.
"Caboose Hobbies: Stealing Husbands since 1938."
It's strange to be the one behind the counter for once. Strange to be the one counting the money out, worrying about giving back the incorrect amount of change rather than getting it. Strange to be the one fumbling with the bag while they stand there, holding the credit card. It's strange to be the one who has to have all the answers, and difficult to not have any.
The strangest part though, by far, is to be the 'new kid.' I've always been so comfortable with where I am and who I'm with, it's difficult for me to be in a learning situation, especially when no one is learning along side me. I can't help feel embarassed when I make a mistake or I have to ask my coworkers to explain something--again.However, I like to feel that I'm a fast learner, so I convince myself that I'm doing well. I've memorized most of my coworker's names, and I have the art of cashiering pretty well covered.
There are still a lot of bugs to work out of my not-so-skilled technique, but there's time to learn them.
Plenty of time.
Paul has worked at the hobby store for four years, Mara for five, Antje for God knows how long. I hopefully won't be there for more than two.Just two more. Two more to scan and smile, even when I don't want to. To scan and wish strangers a nice day, like a robot. Two years before I graduate and go away.
This is not my career. This is just my job.
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