Exactly one year ago, my neck was split open and the initial test yelled benign. Can you believe it? I can barely. I ran away to hide for a year in the hopes that nothing bad would happen for a stretch and I could get a grip on all the sad that had come back to back. And? Nothing that bad has happened and I’ve gotten a grip. This plan will not always work. In fact, I’d argue it would never work again. But, my, am I grateful this Sunday. I did not have one singular idea this month, just a bunch of little ones I kept whittling on. They’re spread out between found text I’ve photographed for the last six months which I’ve edited down to a poem on running away and finding the will again. Substack was not built for this found text project but if you click on one of the photos it will expand so you can read the gallery, left to right. Even that is a little tricky so I’ve put the exposed text beneath the gallery with signs separated by commas.
WHAT HITS
My buddy and I have been working on a project and many of our ideas keep coming back to age and beauty. I’ve been substituting in a bunch of middle and high schools and am so freaked out by how controlled the girls are by their appearance. It’s always been this way but I feel for them as they figure out how to exist online where everyone is really starting to look just one way. At 31, I’m so sick of being afraid my career or life is over because I’m too old. It’s illogical and I see right through the thought each time but it’s not like that stops it from popping up. My buddy sent me this unreleased song from Big Thief and I’ve been singing it frequently. Eager to belt it from the rooftops when it drops. Would be sick if a bunch of high school girls did the same. It won’t fix us but it’s way more fun to sing a lame thought away.
A DRIP on signs
For over a week, a tennis shoe has lain forgotten in the middle of Holly Street, untouched and upright. This five lane street is never idle. How the shoe has lasted this long is no miracle. It’s protected by solid yellow lines that soon turn dashed as the lane opens up for left turns. There has been no extreme weather, just hot rain. It’s a proven fact that Colorado is home to some of the angriest drivers in the country yet no one has stopped to put the shoe in its place. A block from the shoe, Holly borders a large park with trails. This part of the street is under construction. A dump truck accidentally killed a pedestrian on Monday. The street was closed and covered in caution tape when I drove South to the gym but one lane was open when I drove home. The shoe was not older than the person that died but now it has outlasted them. Years ago, I was on a bus and a 20 year old who got off the bus was hit by a car that immediately drove away. It was a double bus, the kind that connects by a slinky in the middle. The bus driver couldn’t legally leave his seat so he started yelling. Like dominos, a woman in the front bus started yelling. This was enough motion for me to walk forward. She appeared physically fine but gripped the hubcap that fell off the car with both hands while I explained concussions and the power of shock. When the firetruck arrived, I pointed to her walking across the park at midnight. “It’s the girl hugging the hubcap. I couldn’t convince her to stay.” Legally, they couldn’t either. We watched her disappear. I got back on the bus. They got back in the firetruck. Where we’d all been there was now nothing. I kept Mozzarella in my fridge two months too long for it was food he’d eaten. If the cheese remained, so did he. Pure madness but in the first lapse of grief, nothing can reach you. Like the street, the shoe is gray. If anyone is to stop and remove the shoe it will be the grievers, a bored cop, or me
(your fantasy each person gets the same, take the entire, heart, prop the door open, it will break you, bad possibly, there is no stopping!)
I have learned you have to learn every lesson on your own. You can hear it or read it but it’s not there until you are. If being alive had a shape it would be an onion that you peel down all the way then reassemble. If you asked a baby and a 99 year old for advice they would say the same thing. I walked into a coffee shop and the barista wouldn’t stop referring to me as “my friend.” He turned and that stupid phrase we’ve plastered on mugs and bedroom walls was on his shirt. It’s not that I don’t believe these things but I don’t trust the delivery. My friend? At most I am your neighbor and the only man I let talk to me that way is Mr. Rogers. The adventure? I’m headed into 45 minutes of traffic only to be annihilated by 8th graders on the other end. Three fuming blocks later I found that you can hear it or read it but it’s not there until you take the joke. Ok. Fine. The street is quiet as dawn fog mists down. My coffee steams up against it. Two cries pushing opposite. Let the adventure begin, my friend.
(you think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world but then you, can’t solve the problem, whisper to me and we’ll, estimate the distance between you and a lightning flash, have croissants, look to see today)
I taught in an 8th grade classroom and a clique asked me questions in a cascade to get out of the reading:
Ms, do you have a boyfriend?
Ms, are you happy?
Yeah, Ms are you happy?
Those are personal questions but I’ll consider answering if you do the reading.
She seems happy.
Yeah, she’s happy.
So who is your boyfriend?
The kids at this school come from low income families. I substituted in a Music classroom where all of the kids are rich. They didn’t ask me questions but they didn’t have a reading. Both school’s bathrooms have posters in the stalls. At the poor school, they explain abusing marijuana. At the rich school, they explain The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. A new friend told me recently that one time at his high school, in a class of all boys taught by a man, one of the boys came back from the bathroom and said, “James just took the biggest shit I have ever seen in my life. He hasn’t flushed it. You have to come see.” The boys begged to go see it but the teacher refused. They continued to beg until finally, exasperated, the teacher yelled, “Fine! Two at a time! Two at a time.” I don’t know what this school’s socioeconomic status was but I laughed so hard I could not stop to talk. The fourth habit is “think win-win.”
(intimacy really, it’s not a forgiving smooth terrain, i wanna see you, be whatever, toxic, special, your ideas are, whatever yours need to be, please leave door open)
I was getting worried about how little I’ve been crying. Someone my new friend knew died fast, too. It is easier to talk and easier to listen. We both stilt off in different directions but find ourselves standing dumbstruck in the same land of “What? Well. Ok.” It isn’t an angry place any longer but a quiet expanse. We passed a woman on our hike that whispered, “There is a moose ahead! Look for it in the willows.” We did. He did more. Every meadow we would wait. I would peer into it. He would drive further. We finished the hike and went back to the lake. I made eye contact with a deer who came to the water and decided to be vegetarian for the rest of my life which lasted the night. We headed back to the camp but he said, “one more try,” and dragged us across the lot for one last hike up the hill to search the valley. There was nothing. A great, silent dusk stretched out wide in all directions but no flicker of brown hope with antlers. He pulled out his binoculars despite it. I am not worried anymore.
WHAT’S UP JILL?
JILL! My first memory of Jill is that she was always late for chapter because she was an architect major. Now, we never have to go to chapter again and she is not an architect. Jill is the type of friend whose introduction has always been, “this is my badass friend Jill.” This probably felt like a lot to live up to over the years especially when she didn’t feel badass. But she just is one through and through. She also has the ability to deliver the perfect joke in a time of need with ease and great secretiveness. We will be in a situation in which we cannot joke around and without breaking face, Jill will whisper something extremely funny, and dip right back into the serious situation. Jilly has pulled me out of some dark nights of the soul time and time again. Jill forever.
1. What is something strange, cool, or funny that happened to you recently?
2. What advice would you give yourself one year ago?
It’s ok to have an average job. Some of my fav advice thus far. See you in Oct.
I'm so sorry, what is chapter?