BLOG
IMPRESSIONS 1 I remember when Kentucky would get snow. I once took a ruler out to the picnic table for an accurate accounting of our accumulation, and we had eight whole inches. That no longer seems impressive after years in the Midwest, but remember, this is the South we’re talking about. I built an igloo. It was magical. (Weirdly, Kentucky’s gotten a lot of snow in recent years—just a few weeks ago, ten inches fell on my hometown. What the heck.) Ice was the bigger danger. When I was young we had an ice storm harsh enough to crack the mulberry tree in our backyard in half. In high school we lost power for a week when an especially bad one tore through. In the eerily silent darkness, I remember the trees clicking like windchimes, like an audience of crystalline fingers snapping. An indelible sense of wonder and magic always accompanied ice’s slick, dangerous thrill. When snowed out of elementary school, we bundled up and trekked over to Bloomfield Christian Church, to a great sledding hill just beneath the cemetery. It was pretty steep, but not too long; I could whiz down again and again and not tire out on the ascent. Not that I always climbed back up. Sometimes, after tumbling from my toboggan at the end of an exhilarating ride, I stayed on my belly and stared at the grass, entranced by the blades encased in shining sheaths of ice. It felt akin to finding insects preserved in amber. Only the discoveries of Ötzi and the Lascaux paintings could possibly have kindled comparable fascination. So, like any budding naturalist worth their salt, I snapped off a blade, carefully extracted and discarded the frozen greenery, and sucked on its icy shell like a candy straw. It whistled with a most pleasant tone. I have never let professional protocol get in the way of a good time. ****************************** I have a confession to make. It’s eaten at me for over a decade, and I can’t hold it in any more. Sometimes I opted to have my half-hour of computer time first thing in the morning, waking up early just to sneak in an extra fifteen minutes of Civilization III before Mom and Dad got up. Please don’t burn my baby pictures. ****************************** The paint was a faded robin’s egg blue and the handlebars curled over and around like a Frenchman’s mustache, putting it a place above the plebeian pedal-propelled perambulators possessed by my peers. The wheels were slim and sleek. The brake levers were gracefully crafted, a classy matte aluminum. And, coolest of all, it could shift gears without pedaling. This bike was the bee’s knees. I got a Sweet New Helmet to accompany my Wicked Awesome Bike. This beaut was a rich sapphire blue, glittered when it caught the light, and, as a half-sphere, struck a professional silhouette. I scoffed at those embarrassing plastic bonnets turned your head into a football. Butterflies started in my stomach as I tipped over the hill, and the wind surrounded me. I down-shifted. Then, just for the heck of it, I shifted back up. My legs never moved. Titillating. My hands moved around on the curious new handles, searching for a comfortable position. Braking at the bottom (obviously not stopping—stopping’s for scrubs), I veered right and decided to forgo my regular route for a longer road. I needed to show off my new gear. We talk about ‘fresh air’ as a singular sensation, but every place adds its own elements to the outdoor experience, a smell and texture unique to the locale. Heady notes of pollen and river mud, with a subtle tickling of manure, rode the warm summer breeze into my lungs. I breathed deeply, grasshoppers buzzing in the grass around me, wind ruffling my hair. Few joys are so pure. But this idyllic isolation came with dark consequences. As I crested the long, slow hill that marked the halfway point, I heard a pop from just behind me and pedaling became a slog: surprise, a tack! I tried to keep going, but the terrible rubbery moans from my rear wheel quickly became too much to bear. I couldn’t be that cruel. Something inside me splintered, trapping my breath and wringing out tears of disbelief. I was destroyed. My beautiful bike, broken. My poor preteen self, stranded and alone on a strange country road (it wasn’t that strange) far from my home (I wasn’t that far). Through ragged sobs and watery sight, I grumped, grumped, grumped the whole half-mile home. The next week, I was out on my wheels again. ****************************** The floor vent was my enemy.
The floor vent remains my enemy. The floor vent ate my LEGOs. In the bottom of the duct they gathered dust, still in view but out of reach, a taunting sight, weeping for my touch, longing for a caress and care they would never feel again. The years have been long, but I will not forget and I shall not forgive. Darn you, floor vent. Darn you straight to heck.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
About My BlogStories. Archives
May 2020
Categories
All
|