July 26, 2006

Past, Present, Future, Tense

Sometimes the the pains of the past, the uncertainties of the future, and my present shortcomings all fall on me on the same day, like a hammer driving a nail into a board with a single strike. Like a congested 3 way intersection, my mind was in rush hour, and my stomach was empty.

Burritos are poor conversationalist. Mine sat in the passenger's seat and didn't say a word. I looked at it with contempt. It was a poor companion and not much of a dinner either. And it paled in comparison to whom i wished was in its place.

In fact at that moment, anyone would have been better.

I came to a stop sign in the dark. I reached back with my right arm behind the seat. Prada lifted her head up into my hand. For that, i was thankful. I wanted to stop thinking, to talk to someone, to change my state of mind.

The lighted turned green. I turned left quickly across 2 lanes of empty road and headed for the bridge. I couldn't change my state of affairs, but i could change my state. The truss-work on the bridge reminded me of a skeleton; a rib cage, whose spine i drove across as it arched itself over the Ohio River. The air above the river condenses, like a horse's breath in a snowy pasture. Prada hung her head out the window, and i tried to imagine what she felt as the river's air blew past her.

I wanted to stop my car on the bridge. I wanted to get out and jump; not for my death; but for my life, as if the metaphor would somehow change me.

On the other side of the bridge is a sleepy town cleaved with a set of train tracks. Below it, and beside the bridge, on the southern banks of the river is a parking lot. I pulled in and parked at the edge along the rock that held the edge of west Virginia from becoming - ultimately - waterfront property in Louisiana.

I suppose dirt- like me- also has a past, a present and an uninsurable future. Our only differences are my ability to remember, or rather- my inability to forget; and my paltry ability to question providence. that i think, is all.

There is a quote somewhere that says "Food is love." It is maybe more literal to think of food as happiness.

and happiness does not often come to me with a smile. More often, it comes to me in a sober sense of clarity, with open windows on a dark roads, in canoes on quiet lakes, or in a snowfall. All of which never seem to last as long as I would like; and none of them involve eating a burrito on the hood of your car alone at a boat dock in Williamstown W.Va.

Prada went off into the weeds under the lone halogen light on the top of a lone telephone pole. The blue hazy light faded up into the bones of the empty bridge. I walked to the edge of the river.

Saying a prayer is like throwing stones into rivers at night. I throw them both into the darkness with a heave, and wait with open and strained senses, hoping to hear a splash; an effect to my cause; a reply in the night.

Sometimes i do them both at the same time.

I sat down on a stone, and reached my hand behind me. Prada came and put her head into my outstretched hand. Sometimes the pains of the past, the uncertainties of the future, and my present shortcomings all fall on me on the same day, like hammer driving a nail into a board with a single strike.

The pounding reminds me of my inability to forget.

It reminds me of my future that i do not know.

It reminds me of my shortcomings, that leave others alone without me: to program websites, build cabins, move to new houses, and cry themselves to sleep in the night.

Posted by Todd Roeth at July 26, 2006 09:05 PM