Muddy rush
01 April 2011 01:37 PM Categories: Quotidian existence
I look at the lush greenery along the sidewalk and in front yards and see that plants have a dignity and presence, a reach, are grounded, that the sidewalk itself, with its web of cracks and persistent weeds, is a poetry of fissures and history. I notice the other lives offered through house windows and on porches. It feels good to be connected, away from the buzz in my skull.
It happens at the playground, too, distraction followed by revelation. A couple of weeks ago, the boy and I were at Strawberry Creek Park, the boy playing a prince chameleon in his vast chameleon castle. Sometimes I swing at playgrounds, though those butt-hugging belt seats are uncomfortable, nothing like the supportive, jaw-cracking wooden-seated swings we had when I was a kid. I lean back and pump and pretty soon I’m high up in the air, almost as high as the top bar. This day, however, the swinging made me sick, or maybe it was the earthy smell of spring, a scent with the rot of fall and winter behind it, of death supporting new life. Dizzy, I got off and sat in the sun, and grunted responses to the boy while I tried to figure out how to load ringtones on my new phone.
Do computers and smartphones and the constant stretched out half-intimacy that is the Internet ever undermine your calm? That’s what was happening to me at the park, the realization that I was so not in the moment, that I wasn’t even in my own skin. So I put the phone away. I listened to the boy. And I looked around me.
Three redwood trees, stately ladies swaying in the breeze, looked down on us from across the street, their branches gesturing wildly. If you let yourself be open to it, you can feel the energy coming off of trees and other people and animals and the flowers still pushing out of the ground. That’s what I felt, a deep connection to those trees. It was the thing I was looking for on Facebook, through a passionate email exchange, through leaving comments on blogs.
Here it was. Connection. To the earth. To the trees. To my boy. It’s a special trick, to be able to plug in to the world. What human beings will go through for a moment of connection, of the perfect moment. The pursuit of sex, of friendship, of the chance touch. Are there really people out there who connect effortlessly? Am I one of a small group who experiences the world through a mist of self-doubt and history?
Later that week, Nora dog and I took a walk in a rainstorm. We followed Nora's squirrel lust to the creek, though the squirrels were probably sleeping it off in their sodden leaf nests. I held my phone under my hood, the cold rain coming in rivulets down my sleeve. My pants were soaked at the knee. The creek rushed with days of rain, with mud and washed-out banks and trash. I stood on the small footbridge while my mother talked. I watched the water flow, imagined dropping the phone, climbing up on the metal railing, and plunging into the wet. Instead, I acknowledged the weather, acknowledged my mother, and kept on walking, my hands chilled, while Nora snuffed the smell of spring.
I appreciate the small moments when the mist clears. I anticipate the smooth touch of a hand, admire the way the redwoods sway in the breeze, the muddy rush of water. I see the lives going on around me and know I want to live too.
Image: The boy and a friend at the edge of Strawberry Creek.
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