Morning Visions

 

It is with neither rhyme nor reason

whiskers should appear.

I'd have had a better plan

but no one asked me.

Living in the Moment

It was as if I were no longer sitting in the boat, floating along the Withlacoochee, but had been transported into an unseen aspect of nature herself.  No longer just a spectator, I suddenly seem to have a knowing.  I had become one with my surroundings.

          This has happened only one other time in my life.  I was in an art gallery.  I was aware of the muted whispers of other art lovers in the building, I understood the playful echo the tile floor was making as various shoe types made their way from room to room, but much more than that, I was drawn into the colors and brush strokes of each painting.

          Mona Lisa’s thoughts became mine and as she looked deep into my eyes, I understood her expression.  Starry night, by van Gogh came alive, like I had mentally gone into the painting and was now traveling through the dark regions, like some astronaut in street clothes.  It’s odd how I can now remember each painting and every adventure and at the time couldn’t wait to wander into the next room of the gallery.

          But this was different.  This was a live, flowing river.  The captain’s voice droning on in the background, as if the history of man upon the river was somehow important.  If he only knew.  If there were some way I could share with him my newfound understanding, he would be seeing his surrounding as I currently was.  The life and death struggle so real and ever present. 

          At one point there were hundreds of birds in the massive trees all around us, and yet not a sound could be heard.  They didn’t want us here, I could feel it, but it wasn’t a hostel impression I was picking up.  It was more a sadness they were feeling for our species.  They seemed very much aware of how our stupidity causes us to do harm to nature, to their environment, their food source.

          Suddenly I didn’t want to be there.  I didn’t want this newfound understanding.  I wanted this river tour to be over, to get off this boat and return to the serenity of my ignorance.  And as if thinking made it so, I found myself once again behind the wheel of my car, driving home.   I had no recollection of departing the tour, climbing back onto the rickety, wooden pier, or walking through the parking lot.  Someone had pushed the fast-forward and now here I was driving home.  How would I describe this day to anyone?  Who would believe me?  They would think I was on some drug induced trip, and maybe it was like that, I’m not sure.  I just know I was given a sneak peek into life itself, and it was overwhelming.

 

 

 

 

 

Periscope Depth

 

The tall grandfather clock stopped ticking in the wee hours and apparently the sudden absence of the ticking sound was enough to awaken Samantha.   She sat up in bed thinking something was wrong, but she wasn’t sure what.  She sat motionless, straining to hear any unfamiliar sounds.  Was there an intruder in the house?  Had someone broken in?

Finally, she noticed that it was too quiet.  The house was never this quiet.  There were always creaking sounds, general expansion and contraction noises as the house went through its adjustments from the day’s temperature changes.  Old houses make noise, she thought to herself, but none of that was going on at the moment.  Then, as she sat there listening, it came to her.  Where is the clock?  It hadn’t chimed on the quarter hour and there was no sound of it ticking.

Satisfied she had figured out the issue, Samantha lay back down and smiled as she fluffed her pillow.  The last sound she heard as she fell back asleep was the automatic ice maker in the refrigerator clunking new cubes into the tray.

The internal dialog Samantha was having, while sitting up in bed, was nothing more than her rational thought process working through the process of elimination.  Once she had justified to herself that what woke her was the clock no longer ticking or chiming, her comfort level was returned.  She felt safe.

If we were to see an exaggerated cartoon of this woman sitting up in bed, we’d see her ears trying to pick up on sound waves, and her brain activity bouncing back and forth, checking off all the possibilities, all the while her eyelids still only half open, her impulse to lay back down growing stronger.  None of these things, however, not even in the cartoon would pick up on what was really taking place in the spirit world, not even, as the spirits refer to it, as periscope depth.  That is the closest humans can get to actually seeing the activity of spirits, in other than a perceived glimmer or imagined flicker.  Only on the rarest of occasions is it picked up in an eerie silence.

 

Loose Ends

 

Before climbing into the casket there are a few things you need to do.  

Mail a reminder card to your dentist that you are dead, stop your newspaper and bail out of that friends and family plan with your phone carrier.  Put a black armband around your mailbox.  Return all library materials, even if it is only through the outside drop box.  Pay your lawn service through the end of the year.  You don’t want to be known as, “That house”.

Mix the lime with the coconut, just to see.  Run with scissors.  If Larry jumps off a cliff, you do it too.  Bring enough for everyone.  Walk from outside right onto the gym floor with your street shoes.  Cash in all rainy-day accounts.  Resign from the Christmas Club.  Leap before looking.  Leave the cover open while striking a match.  Draw outside the lines.  Brush back and forth. Be someone else.  Skip to the last page of your book.  Act someone else’s age.  Leave your vegetables.  Stop and drop, but don’t roll.  Look one way.  Climb every other mountain.  Mind only your P’s.  Put an E before an I.  Remain seated and don’t be counted.  Leave an odd number of car lengths between you and the vehicle in front of you.  Hire a company ahead of time to decorate your house for Halloween. Talk behind someone’s back.  Leave your cell phone on in the movie theatre.  Cut in line.  Have more than 12 items.  Think inside the box.  Dispose of improperly. Drink irresponsibly.  Give till you laugh.  Follow someone else’s dream.  To thy own self – lie.  Take only photographs, leave your trash.  Stand ahead of the white line.  Never use exact change.  Chew just enough.  Stick a Q-Tip in your ear.  Use the same excuse for everything.

That's it.

North Lake

 

One Day at the Supermarket

 

I could see several things as I waited in the parking lot.  She had gone in for a few things, leaving me to rotate between having the air on or the windows rolled down.

There was an old man leaning against his car, wearing Florida shorts, a non-Hawaiian shirt, and tennis shoes with white socks.  He was twisting something around in the fingers of his right hand.  It was either an unlit cigarette or a tire gauge. I couldn’t be sure.

A rather large lady pulled into the spot next to me.  She was driving a very loud three-wheeled motorcycle.  It had all kinds of fancy things on it, and it seemed to breathe a sigh of relief the minute she climbed off.  As she walked into the market, I couldn’t help but think how fun it would be to ride a bike like that, zipping along an old country road.  Except for the occasional overwhelming smell of cows, what a hoot that would be.

Off to my right was an old man who should have turned in his driver’s license years ago.  He had spent the last several minutes attempting to back out of his parking spot, but various walkers and people cruising for an empty parking spot kept going right behind him, so he’d once again step on the brake, shift back into drive and pull a few inches forward, back to where he had been.  Then, he would again struggle to shift back into reverse, check his mirrors, turn his head to see if anyone was coming and he’d start the process all over again.  Nope – not yet.

Something caught my attention off to my left.  Flashing lights on the top of a rather large truck.  Okay, I see it is a tow truck, so that must have been a tire gauge and not a cigarette.  Yep, he’s headed over to the guy wearing shorts, who is now also waving his arms in the air to get the tow truck driver’s attention.

Apparently frustrated at taking so long to back out of his parking spot, the old man just went ahead and hit the gas.  His scruffy blue car lurched back just in time to crunch into the side of the passing tow truck.  I felt bad for the old man, who now slumped upon the steering wheel, I assume regretting his last decision to just go for it.    

I watched as a very unhappy driver of the tow vehicle walked around the to this side of his truck to better see what had happened.  Meanwhile, tire guage guy had come trotting over to find out why the tow truck he had requested stopped two aisles away.  Both men were now standing at the driver’s window, presumably checking on the slumped-over driver.

A Supermarket kid, pushing a long line of carts towards the store, didn’t even glance at the activity as he passed.  His thoughts, I’m sure, were of his next days off.  The long line of carts brushing too close, knocked the tire gauge from the hand of shorts guy, who – I guess because of the noise of the passing carts and the distress he felt for slumped-over man, didn’t even notice when it fell to the ground.

Also watching the activity was a seagull, perched atop the tall light pole.  His squawks went unnoticed by the now small crowd gathered at the crunch sight.  One lady, setting her groceries on the pavement, was now calling for an ambulance for slumped over man.  The tow driver had gotten the car door open and was kneeling, talking with the old man, who did not seem to respond.

Just for a moment, seeing the turmoil unfold before me, and hearing the background music of the squawking seagull, I imagined myself viewing all of this from the seats of the Old Globe Theatre.  A once plush and elegant building, whose days had long passed.  Today, the seats felt small and crammed together, reminding theatre goers that neither a well written play nor the skill of the actors would be good enough to distract from the greed of the theatre owner who had squeezed even more seats into each row.

I looked down at my gas guage and decided to shut the car off and instead roll down the windows.  This not only increased the volume of the seagull to me but let in a rush of hot air.  I had not realized it had gotten so warm out.  I could now hear the distant siren of the paramedics rushing to the aid of slumped over man.  How many lives, I wondered, had this old man’s decision affected?  The number seemed to be growing.

I watched as the seagull pushed off and flew across the parking lot.   I wondered – would the paramedics be in time?  Had the old man already passed away?  Maybe, just maybe that was the old man’s soul pushing off from the light pole, heading off to a better place.

Suddenly my wife was knocking on the car.  I could see her holding the brown shopping bags in my mirror, so I quickly popped the trunk.  I felt them as they almost imperceptibly changed the level of the car, and I remembered seeing the adjustment of the motorcycle when the rider got off.

As my wife clicked her seatbelt, I started the car.

“What’s going on over there?” she asked.

I double checked my mirrors and back-up camera.  “A seagull was just announcing a new arrival.  Put your window down, you might still be able to hear him.”

I could see her glance over to me. 

“You’re strange.”