A Day’s Randomness

I learned that “morgenmuffel” is a German phrase for a person who is grumpy in the mornings. I also learned that that condition reverses into “guten morgen” after a few cups of coffee.

Today was the 2^nd day of school for my kids. They knew they had to get up early, I knew we had to get up early. I did. They did. Shoot…they were ready to leave 20 minutes before we had to leave. I’m good with it, cause there will be days where we will be rushing out the door and barely make it on time. So, I took advantage of it and got there 15 minutes before they opened the doors. We sat in the car, listened to music, and spent time together before being separated for the next 7 hours.

While in the car, the radio is always on. Most of the time, as it was also this morning, the radio is set to 107.9 Big FM. Hits from the 60’-80’s. My kids can recognize certain artists like Elvis, The Beatles, and a whole lot of newer artists. This morning, an Elvis song was playing. I said, “Ooh, Elvis!” My daughter reminded me that he was the “King of Rock.” She then said, “Michael Jackson was the King of Pop. What if Elvis and MJ had a kid? Would he be the King of Pop Rock?” Hmm…she then said that MJ would have to be a woman. She thought about it for a moment, and then said, “Well…”

At work, two other crew members and I were working on refinishing the gymnasium floor. It had already been stripped and it was time to put wax down. Someone had gotten on the floor between the time it had been stripped and the time to put wax down. So, we were in there using a bit of stripper and a scratch pad to take up the scuff marks. We’d spray a little stripper from a spray bottle on the marks and then buff it with the scratch pad. Every time we’d spray, it would make splatter spots all around the area we were working on. “Be careful of the stripper splatter,” I said. The more I thought of it, the more it sounded like a line from a really bad porno, or something that would be said in a Quentin Tarantino movie…

Before we started working on the floor, I had opened the back doors for a little “fresh air.” As soon as I did, I saw a ladies wallet on the steps. It was opened and I knew right away that it had been stolen. Some photos were water damaged, there were receipts sticking out of the wallet, and several credit cards and even a driver’s license. I searched through it to see if there was some sort of contact information so that I could call the woman and get her wallet back to her. Sure enough, there was a business card with her name and phone number. She worked at UTC, which is right there by where I work. I called and told her that I found her wallet. She was ecstatic! Turns out, the building where she worked was on the same corner of the church. She said to meet her out on the sidewalk at the corner of Douglas and McCallie. When we met up, she immediately hugged my neck and kept thanking me over and over. She looked in the wallet and said that all her credit cards were still in there. She was glad her driver’s license was still there, because she had already made an appointment to get another one. She told me that if there was anything I needed, to find her in the building on the opposite corner of the church. I’ll keep that in mind. I might need something someday.

Oh yeah…there was also a pile of human feces and a tank top shirt on the back steps. :-)

Another thing...thanks for the 4G of music. You know who you are (maybe). I'll be back for more.

Double Paned Prophetic

The streaks are there before I even spray on the window cleaner. The slightly moist rag takes the streaks away, but leave even more that dissipate as the window dries. Small pieces of lint dance on the glass after all the streaks are gone. A quick wipe with a dry rag and the window is a crystal clear screen for the never-ending movie of the outside world that plays on in the most vividly realistic 3-D. There’s a lot going on out there. The horizon is miles away, and in the space of those miles there are cars taking people on journeys long and jaunts short. There are people without means of transportation either hopping on busses that come through like clockwork, riding bicycles, or using their own two feet to get to wherever they need to go. There are buildings with facades that are worn and cracked and buildings that are so new that they still have the price tags on them. All around the edge of the horizon, mountains line up and act as still sentries, guarding the perimeter of the bustling city from the unseen forces that are imagined as mounting the advance. Among the sounds from these sights are sirens and alarms, horns and shouts, laughter and crying. It is a view that changes from window to window, from floor to floor of this multi-storied building. Different windows; different views in perhaps different times from a life story…

First floor: There is a small boy sitting in the dirt with a dirty cast on a dirty leg. He’s pushing a toy car around in his imagined metropolis of mud buildings, Popsicle stick bridges and paper towel tube tunnels. He winces with a bit of pain as he moves his broken leg in order to swing around to push the car further down the road that continues on behind him. A horrible thing has happened, something this little boy doesn’t quite understand. He looks up in anticipation as he hears a female’s voice come through the open window of the house. Is that mama? Did she come back from that big white building filled with the nice people that put this heavy thing on his still aching leg? Daddy, brother and sister are home, as well as aunts and uncles and grandmas and grandpas, but mama isn’t here. That voice was just one of the other mamas that come and go with sad looks on their faces. Not mama’s voice…and the toy car continues on its journey to the cardboard box school near the end of the dirt and by the edge of the grass.

Second floor: Palm trees and moss covered oaks. Hmm…new things to the boy in the passenger seat. Not much is remembered of the trip from Tennessee to the Sunshine state, but things never seen before leave an impression. A strange noise, later to be found out as a peacock cry, at first scares the boy, and then when the source is found, amazement takes the place of fear. This is his first remembered trip to Florida where his grandmother lives. He gets a little shy when he sees a young couple kissing (the guy who took him down had met his girlfriend there and had no qualms about kissing her in front of the boy). But embarrassment turns to joy when his grandmother greets him and takes him home. Little did he know, but this was to be his home through his first years of college.

Third floor: The sounds of children laughing and playing carry over the playground outside a two-room schoolhouse. Double-dutch jump rope, high-in-the-sky swings, Red Rover, kickball, tether ball, and monkey bars; part of the regimen of exercise called “recess”. This is the place where first friends are made, first crushes are experienced, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are traded “up” for cheese and mayo sandwiches (and maybe a banana to boot). The innocence of childhood is slowly ebbing away, being replaced by just a touch of knowledge of the real world and the pain and the wonder it brings.

Fourth floor: He’s too young to be called a man and too old to be called a boy. He lugs his suitcase up to the room assigned to him for his first year at academy, mere hours away from home. The room is no bigger than his old room at home, but split down the middle in a mirror image of beds, dressers and closets. Yet this one holds two people and their possessions. The previous year, he and his best friend were the whole of the ninth grade class. Now he is just one of about a hundred sophomores. This is where even more friends are made, the knowledge that some people are just not nice at all, and others would give you their all for just the asking. In this time period there is the “never to be forgotten” first kiss, the realization that sports are just not his “thing”, and some decisions are made that just might not be the smartest ones to make. More lessons learned.

Fifth floor: More lugging of suitcases up stairs, this time in a college more than 500 miles from home, yet in the same area where home was before going to Florida. He really doesn’t know what he is doing here. Yes, it was his decision to come here, but deep down, he knows he is only here because it is what is expected of him. Might as well make the best of it and see what there is to do, because people are depending on him. He doesn’t really know what he wants to do in life, and this place is where he is supposed to be made ready for it through books and tests, on paper and in reality. Leave first crushes and kisses behind…this place is full of the real thing! But who has time for that when your education is at stake? Well, at least for the first few years anyway. More bad decisions and the real crusher of dreams called “complacency” take precedence over any original good intentions of the freshman of yesterday. He wonders who he is and where he is supposed to be…the answer is that he is who he is and right here is where he is supposed to be…

Sixth floor: Nothing else matters. There she is. He can’t believe that she is here after many seemingly failed attempts at showing how much he cared, all the notes and letters unanswered, a simple phone call from far away that felt so good…he returns, and here she is. He remembers a few short months ago, a night spent dancing and singing karaoke, and a “few too many” to drive home. Those few extra had nothing to do with the way he felt that night. It was a feeling that he had never really felt until then. That feeling never went away from that day forward. He knew that what he felt was coming back to him; love for someone else that surpassed the love for self many times over. He keeps telling himself that it is too good to be true, but it isn’t. It isn’t even about the prospect of sex. It isn’t even a goal. That doesn’t even happen for several months, and that is just all right for him. Trips to blue holes, vacations many states away and in the backyard of the near foothills, nights around a campfire; those things hold more places in his heart than any heated moment of passion. What is to be is coming to be…

Seventh floor: Rose petal lined path, sweet music, friends and family eagerly waiting, hand in hand they walk. Tears, laughter and “I do.” Running away to beautiful beaches, true alone time and enough pictures, printed and engrained…true honeymoon material. Love…

Eighth floor: A young child cries as another one runs laughing through the house. Six years from wedded bliss, he still feels the same love. Love increased by the same cries and laughter…love times three. He still thinks about how he got to this place from where he was. He never got what he came up to this state to do. But what he does have, he wouldn’t trade it for the world. When he didn’t know what he wanted to do, he believes that it has culminated into this moment in time. Husband, father, mentor, caregiver, lover; is it what he set out to be? It could be true. Being a firm believer in “where you are is where you are supposed to be”, it never occurs to him that there just might be something wrong. Life is good, life is strained, life is love…but what is hidden underneath; what is it that he just can’t see and isn’t even aware that it is to be seen?

Ninth floor: Love times three, minus one. “I want a divorce.” The view from here is a bit smeared…

Tenth floor: Looking around at the clutter he thinks, “Wow…that was a lot of living and learning; healing and hoping; blunders and corrections.” He has come through a rough time, perhaps still in it, but coping and making it. He found out just how many true friends he has, who to trust and who not to whisper any secrets to. He still wonders who he is and where he is supposed to be, but the answers don’t seem to change. He looks out the window and into the past. That’s where he was. The vivid and crystal clear image of a child grown to man and the story that fills the empty spaces between the starting point and the point of now is just that; a story. But it is a story that is his. It isn’t one that he would trade for any story that has a perfect ending or one that he could change if he could. It is where he is supposed to be, for whatever reason. He still has love. He still has things to learn. He still has two young minds to direct in the paths of their lives, to create their own stories. He gives them pointers and tips on how to make a great story. But it is not his to make…it is theirs. He can only fill it with his love and his experience.

This last window needs a lot of cleaning. Two panes of glass that keep out the wind and the rain and allow light in and sight out. How many years of neglect from the city air and dust has it seen? What will it take to make the scene outside of it into one that isn’t hazy or blurred? Squirt, wipe, smear, wipe dry…

It’s looking better already.

Blue Tarp Community

It was just past dawn on the morning after the worst storms I’d ever seen in this area of the country. I was on my way to work, taking the same route that I take every day. The scenery was as it is every day. Landmarks unknowingly placed along the known route tell me just where I am. I know my way around this area mostly because of these landmarks. The storms that blew through the night before were terrible. According to those who know, there have been storms not unlike this in the past, but this was long before I lived here. This morning, I was totally unaware of what lay ahead on the road. What was familiar had turned into a stranger.

The first sign of what had happened the night before was an overturned horse trailer. I thought to myself that the winds had to have been strong to turn that thing over. It was a nonchalant thought, just an innocent observation that I naively found a little amusing. I even chuckled a little. But the chuckle quickly turned into stoic silence and shock. Up ahead, trees laid across the road from both sides. Someone had already gone through and cut the trunks, first on one side of the road, then the other so that I had to zigzag my way up Apison Pike. What I saw was just utter destruction. Houses leveled. Utility poles lying with downed trees. Cars and trucks flipped over and crushed, even wrapped around trees. It was more than I could understand.

As I made my way through the mess, one thing popped in my mind; I didn’t know where I was. Nothing was familiar. It was like my car had been picked up and dropped in a foreign war-torn country. I actually said, “Where am I?” out loud to no one at all. Tears came to my eyes as a tinge of fear crept up on me. Something terrible had happened here. As I drove slowly through the thin layer of fog that added to the confusion, something else popped into my mind…a scene from a story I had read, “The Mist”, by Stephen King. Near the end of the story, the small group of survivors from the small town in Maine (of course!) made their way through an impenetrable fog in a truck along a road, hoping to reach a place where the fog was not. Unfamiliar plants and creatures crossed the path. It was unfamiliar to them. That was how I felt; in unfamiliar territories and lost.

I came to my senses and realized that a tornado had obviously come through here. I was still talking out loud and had tears in my eyes when I thought of my aunt and uncle, who lived a few hundred feet from where I was. When I could finally see their house, it was a relief to see it still standing. With just that little hint, I figured that if they had been inside of it, then they were OK. With that fear somewhat sated, I stopped by their driveway. There was no way I was getting up it. Trees and utility poles lay across it. I saw a woman on the side of the road across from their driveway, a woman I recognized from my days of working at McKee Foods. I rolled down my window and talked to her. I asked if she knew if my aunt and uncle were OK. She didn’t know, but she thought that they were, because some people had been going from house to house to see if people were alive or trapped or needing assistance of any kind. She pointed to a truck on the side of the road and said, “That person died.” She went on to say that her mother, who is wheelchair-bound, was up in her house and had no way of getting out. I told her, without even knowing, that help would be on the way. I left that area and went on towards E. Brainerd Rd. A policeman was sitting at the intersection, talking to the person who was ahead of me. I pulled up beside and heard the man telling the policeman about this woman, so I knew that help really would be on the way.

I headed on to work. I didn’t know what else to do. I suppose I could have skipped work and did all I could to help those who had lost everything. I didn’t. I know that there wasn’t much of anything that I could have done to help those that others weren’t already helping. I had to go to work. Since my power had gone off the night before, I didn’t even know that tornadoes had hit as many places as they did. I had no way of charging my phone, and it had gone dead. The first thing I did when I got to work was to plug it in and try to call my family in Apison. I tried the first person I could think of, especially since I figured all the land lines were down. I called my cousin, Shane. His parents are the members of my family that live right there by the destruction. I got him on the phone after several attempts and found out that yes, they were fine, but that his friend and most of his family had died in the storm. I just couldn’t believe the tragedy. I called my friend Michelle and in talking to her, found out that the storm had come close to where my kids were with their mother. I hung up and called my ex-wife. I couldn’t get an answer when I called. Do you know panic? I felt panic at that moment. Tears came as my mind imagined never seeing my kids again. I called her new husband and he told me everyone was fine. More tears came in the form of relief.

In the days and even weeks since that morning, people in the affected communities have banded together to clean up and try to piece back together portions of lives lost. The places where houses used to stand are now bare patches of earth, mounds of trees and debris burning away, taking memories up in the air with the smoke rising from the pyres. This place will never be the same. The whole landscape and horizon has changed. It will take time for nature to heal from the monster that raged through that day. It will take time for the people to heal, to rebuild from what they have left. Every day, I pass homes that still stand, their roofs covered with blue tarps to protect the roofs that they were fortunate to escape the storm with. People live in those houses with blue tarps; people who still have hope; still have their possessions and their lives.

While the EF4 tornado was ripping through Apison, and on its way to Cleveland, I was at home. The sky here was partly cloudy, even though I could tell that storms were north of me. The wind would pick up, and then taper off. The rain would come, and then let up. I guess I was blissfully unaware and lucky. I still had the ones I love.

My home is a PBS home. If the TV is on, chances are it is on PBS Kids. There is a show on there called “Peep and The Great Wide World.” The main characters are a chick named “Peep,” a baby bird named “Chirp,” and a baby duck named “Quack.” Even when my kids are not here, the TV is left on, mainly for company and entertainment for my bird. I can’t lie and say that I don’t eavesdrop on the programming, cause, well…I do. Just a few days ago, the story of “Peep” involved the coming of a storm. They had never seen a storm before. They grey clouds covered the sky and they didn’t move on, so they thought they would never go away. The rain started coming down, and they thought it would always rain. The only thing they saw that they could do was to get up and move from their homes; to try and find a place where there were no storms, no rain, no dark clouds. They decided to leave home, but before going, they wanted to visit their friend, a dog. The dog explained that storms never last forever. They move on and leave their mark on where they’ve been. The rains supply life to the trees and grasses that they lived in and played on. The ponds fill back up for swimming pleasure. The sun does come back out. And if you’re lucky, a rainbow supplies the background for a fade-to-black ending…

These storms are gone. They will leave a lasting impression upon the land and our memories. Those who perished have been buried and those who survived still live on. The cleanup continues and the people still work together. It is said that time heals all wounds. I believe it to be so. Time will heal the wounds in all areas; in nature, by replenishing the trees that were torn apart; in hearts, with the love shown for each other not only now, but for all time to come; in our minds by the wonderful phenomenon of filing and forgetting. One thing that I do hope for is that the camaraderie shown during this trying time doesn’t just disappear in an instant. After all, the blue tarps will eventually come down and hopefully, when they do, people will still be there for each other like they should be every day.

Remember, I’ve said it before and I’m saying it again. “In case we never meet again, I love you.”

Sproing!

I know I’ve noticed it slowly edging its way into my peripherals for a few weeks, but within the past few days, my brain finally caught up with my eyes and showed me what I hadn’t been paying attention to. I see it in my yard, in my neighbors’ yards, on my drive to and from work, just about everywhere. The pinks and the whites and the purples and the yellows and the dull reds told me that spring was coming.

The way I saw it, it was already here. The nodding yellow daffodils are just outside my fence, a group of them standing there like a gathering crowd at the scene of an accident, hint that spring is here. The white Bradford Pear trees that look so pretty, yet smell so bad, and seem to be everywhere, tell me that spring is here. The warmer temperatures, the ever-thickening tufts of grass popping up in my yard, and the certain shorts-and-sandals wearing students at UTC, all tell me that spring is here. Even before the calendar stated that it was spring, I knew it was here. And pretty soon, the sounds of “Play Ball!” will definitely indicate that, yes indeed, spring is here.

Dormancy wakes up to activity. The sleep of winter turns into the budding awakening of spring. What seemed to have been dead is thrust into the world anew. The bulbs planted in my “serenity spot” (which is really just a place I planted flowers under some trees, nothing really serene about it, except it is in the shade) have already pushed aside the layer of detritus that cushioned them from freezing temperatures and are stretching up toward the warming sun. Lawnmowers are waking from their winter’s sleep ready to chop and maim and fill the air with the aroma of their presence…mmm…cut grass and gasoline. The trees that have stood silently naked during the bleakness of winter are slowly adorning their latest spring fashions in pastel colors that change to their final greens. Spring is springing forth to make way for summer…sweet, sweet summer.

I am a child of summer. Spring and autumn are my godparents. Winter is an ex in-law that I never seemed to get along with. Spring is really cool. You see, what it does is lay the groundwork for the fun of summer. It is a stepping stone to summer, a gateway season to wean us from the stupor of cold and build up our tolerance to the coming heat. Trees fill out to create shade from the sun; grass thickens to tickle the toes and pad the feet; lakes and rivers become places to float and frolic and swim in. But that is jumping ahead too far…patience, I must have.

Spring is normally the start of something new. Not all things are new. The bulbs under the ground are the same bulbs; the trees are the same trees; the grass is the same grass. The only newness of these things is the life reawakening in them. I guess you can say that nothing is really new. It’s all been done before. Maybe not in your yard or in your life, but somewhere it has happened already. I have a very small patch of monkey grass that I am trying to spread. I brought this patch with me from my old house, where the growth of monkey grass was thick and easy to propagate. Mostly all of it came from a patch from my neighbor’s property. It took years, but eventually, all my large trees had rings around them, and the flower gardens were bordered too. I had to start all over again over here. In the nearly three years that I have lived in my new place, my small patch has only grown maybe twice its size. But I am being patient. My bulbs that I transplanted have not failed me. They have spread more than I had imagined! The monkey grass and the bulbs are a little piece of my old place and life that hopefully will live on for a long time.

Some things don’t emerge anew when the season changed. My cactus (God rest its soul!) didn’t make it through the winter. I had 3 Hostas that I had transplanted from pots from my old house. Only 2 survived the transplant. It looks like only one is left now. Could be that the other one just hasn’t poked out of the ground yet? We will see.

Also, some things don’t even make it to spring. When the March Lion roared its way through a few weeks ago, I lost a tree. It fell and crunched a fence, but no other damage was done. I’m still trying to clean up after that mess. There are limbs all over the yard, not just from that tree, but from others that were blown down in that same storm’s display of aggression. There’s a lot to do before I can mow my yard. But I know that it will look so good when it is cleaned and mowed. Nothing beats a pretty yard!

Something that is new has to do with where I work. An opportunity is before me. More responsibility and growth is before me. I’m not going to talk about what it is just yet, but it is something I’ve wanted for a while and it is a good thing. Much thought and many hours dissecting the pros and cons have been spent in this decision. Soon!

Here’s to hoping that this spring brings happiness and growth to many. I need it, and I know lots of others who need it. We need the hope. We need the blessing of a rebirth and emergence as a new plant, ready for blossoming and the blessed beauty of its flower and the nourishment of any fruit that grows.

Hmm…Fruit. That reminds me. I want a garden this year…