getsmart.er's blog

The first thing that I suspect would come to any Vermonter’s mind when they think of life in our beautiful green state is cold. Three of the four seasons are cold. And I can’t say that summer here is an especially hot affair, either. The trees, the people, and the animals are quite well adapted to the chilliness, but as a newcomer, the first encounter with our sub-zero temperatures is definitely a wake-up call.

The Silence that fills me every time
I take the time.

These seconds that suddenly become hours.
If only because they are not filled with something

Anything, she says.
Anything to bide the time.

I bide my time waiting, I reply
Waiting and watching.

That's not something, though
She tells me

Oh, but I disagree
It is very much something

No, she says.
No, you just don't understand.

Don't I? Sit with me a while
Wait with me

When you aren't waiting for something in particular
Everything becomes a little more interesting, you see

The man who ambles past every few hours
The girl who has a new face every day

They are my time
They tell me when and where and why

No, No, NO.
You can't just sit!

Just. What a word.
What if I was Just this

Or maybe I'd be Just that.
What a strange person I would Just be.

'Uh' she sighs
A release of hot air, I like to believe

Fine. I'll sit with you

I ran through the woods
Frightened but assured by the hate that throbbed inside me
I ran to the sound of the wind, to the sound of the wolves
I would run to anything but the beat of my heart

My thoughts chased me, I did not run with them
I ran ahead of them
I knew that when they caught up, all the logic would hit me
Like a ton of bricks

And I would do something rational.
Rational was not what I needed right then;
I needed to be as irrational as possible, after all,
Where had being rational gotten me in the past?

I convinced myself that the searchlights were trained on me
That the sirens would go off at any second and I would be pursued,
Caught, and killed.
Nevertheless, I ran on

I didn't notice how dog-tired I must have been
I was busy worrying if I was still alive to think my lovely,
Irrational thoughts

The thought police, that's what they were
They dared you to dream of escape
Smiled with a 'Don't even try. I know what you're thinking', smile

As I sat in my booth-for-two slowly doing away with my peppermint stick on a sugar cone, three things happened. I came to accept that in less that 48 hours, I would be a freshman in high school, my ice cream promptly fell down the front of my shirt, and time stopped for five very strange minutes. I felt as though I was standing on the outside of a fast moving, never-ending, unforgiving stream that was life at its simplest. It did not stop, it did not make exceptions. Now standing in my little booth, napkins clutched to my chest, I looked around me and saw people moving past me, as unaware of my presence as I was intimately aware of theirs. In this never-ending stream that is life, I saw that living without a life to enjoy was not only the worst thing one could do, but a proverbial kicking-of-the-bucket. Without a single thing to live for, what have you got to lose? Accepting that I must have been in a dream-like state, I simply let my thoughts carry me away.

“Are you sure that's your last?”

“Yuhuh, it's my last one, I promise,” he slurred.

I rolled my eyes.

“Sure, but don't forget that you're getting a ride home from Steve tonight so don't let him drink too much either. I don't want a phone call at 3 a.m. with some cop telling me that you're dead. I won't be happy.”

“Aw sweetie come on, you love you're daddy, right?”

“Course I love you but I'm not sure if I love you enough to haul my ass out of bed at three in the morning to drive down to the hospital and tell them that it is in fact you that's dead. Not like everyone in this goddamn town doesn't know you.”

“Sure, honey. Now why don't you head on home, let old dad take care of himself.”

“Old dad, last time I let you take care of yourself you came home with no eyebrows and a tattoo. No fucking way am I letting you take care of yourself. Do you know how much it costs to for fake eyebrows? A lot.”

“Come on now, it was fun!”

With these words
I hope to convey to you
A sense of knowing.
More so, at least
Than the words
Shared with me
At my entrance to this
Strange club
This strange feeling.

Beware, because
There are those who
Would harm you
Around every corner.
They lurk in your
weaknesses.
They find their strengths
In your slow
But sure
Deterioration.

Beware, because
Nothing here
Is what it seems.
These doorways mean to
hold back, not inspire.
And the people waiting behind
Them, should you make it that
far would painfully,
without
feeling
kill you.

No, your body wouldn't
Stop functioning.
But your soul would.
And before you shirk
This advice
Ask yourself
If that is any better.

I would be lying through my teeth if I said I've seen the ups and the downs of the world, I have been very privileged in my time here on Earth and I think that as someone as blessed as I am, I have very little perspective of those who have not been so fortunate. I work as a counselor at a day camp a couple weeks in the summer and this past week I was in Winooski, Vermont. Not a particularly prosperous town but beautiful in its own way. I was outside waiting for my co-counselor to get the girls organized, bathroomed, and ready for jump-choice when an older man, totally sloshed, walked up to the back door of the gym and inquired about the activities going on inside. The camp co-ordinator, a no nonsense lady who didn't have time for him politely shooed him away. I was on the outside of a fence surrounding the backyard of the gym with five or six cones placed a couple meters away to keep any trespassers out and all the girls in.