Some Things Never Come Back Down...
We have textured walls in the bathroom where I work. They are the same style of textured walls you see in new homes being built right now. Rip out the desks, hide the printers, and bring in couches and other furniture you'd see in a home and it would fit right in. Hell, one of the two buldings where I work even looks like a big, new house.
Standing at a urinal, there's not a whole lot to do, so I look at the textured walls and see things in the random patterns. It's like seeing things in clouds, except they aren't clouds and I'm not lying in the grass on top of a nice hill on a nice, breezy day--I'm standing there peeing.
There are faces in the walls, a cartoon looking moose, dogs, and the kinds of landscapes perfect for cloud gazing.
When I was a kid, nothing was better than my mom reading to me. I'd get bored and wander to her bedroom at night and bug her so I'd no longer be bored. I don't know if it was an attempt to calm me down and make me tired, or that she knew I was lonely and just wanted to be near somebody. Probably both things--and a lot more things I didn't even think about.
When my mom read to me, more times than not, it was Carl Sandburg's Rootabaga stories.
By the time school rolled around and the education system of Illinois pushed Sandburg on us, I was already familiar with the guy who's name was on the side of the Jr. High School I'd later attend. Before reading his poetry in school, I'd heard his stories about the Potato Faced Blind Man, stories about skyscrapers having children, stories about a guy playing the guitar while wearing mittens, and a particularly surreal slice-of-life favorite about a cigar store indian coming to life and riding around town on a buffalo.
While my sister loved the story about the White Horse Girl and the Blue Wind Boy, I was all about the Dollar Watch and the Five Jack Rabbits.
It's not the strongest story in the book, but for some reason the story about a guy about to be hanged and five freaky jack rabbits appealed to me. Maybe I loved the story because my mom did a great job reading the parts. Maybe I just liked the comfort of lying in a bigger bed with cool sheets and not being alone in my small bed in a room filled with all the bad things my imagination created.
Or maybe I really did like the story as much as I remember.
I think what I liked most was it was a kid's story without a kid's story ending. There's really no resolution. It's open ended and I liked that--I like ambiguous endings to things to this day. I still can't describe the feeling after all these years. I guess more than anything, that short story captured a feeling I've carried with me all my life: it's melancholy, but it's hopeful.
I can't explain it; there was always something in the story I tried figuring out--I'm sure that's why I always asked my mom to read it to me.
I still haven't figured out what it was about the story, but when I was a kid, I wanted to be the jack rabbit with stripes and spots more than anything in the world.
Sometimes as an adult, I still do, and I don't know why...
Standing at a urinal, there's not a whole lot to do, so I look at the textured walls and see things in the random patterns. It's like seeing things in clouds, except they aren't clouds and I'm not lying in the grass on top of a nice hill on a nice, breezy day--I'm standing there peeing.
There are faces in the walls, a cartoon looking moose, dogs, and the kinds of landscapes perfect for cloud gazing.
When I was a kid, nothing was better than my mom reading to me. I'd get bored and wander to her bedroom at night and bug her so I'd no longer be bored. I don't know if it was an attempt to calm me down and make me tired, or that she knew I was lonely and just wanted to be near somebody. Probably both things--and a lot more things I didn't even think about.
When my mom read to me, more times than not, it was Carl Sandburg's Rootabaga stories.
By the time school rolled around and the education system of Illinois pushed Sandburg on us, I was already familiar with the guy who's name was on the side of the Jr. High School I'd later attend. Before reading his poetry in school, I'd heard his stories about the Potato Faced Blind Man, stories about skyscrapers having children, stories about a guy playing the guitar while wearing mittens, and a particularly surreal slice-of-life favorite about a cigar store indian coming to life and riding around town on a buffalo.
While my sister loved the story about the White Horse Girl and the Blue Wind Boy, I was all about the Dollar Watch and the Five Jack Rabbits.
It's not the strongest story in the book, but for some reason the story about a guy about to be hanged and five freaky jack rabbits appealed to me. Maybe I loved the story because my mom did a great job reading the parts. Maybe I just liked the comfort of lying in a bigger bed with cool sheets and not being alone in my small bed in a room filled with all the bad things my imagination created.
Or maybe I really did like the story as much as I remember.
I think what I liked most was it was a kid's story without a kid's story ending. There's really no resolution. It's open ended and I liked that--I like ambiguous endings to things to this day. I still can't describe the feeling after all these years. I guess more than anything, that short story captured a feeling I've carried with me all my life: it's melancholy, but it's hopeful.
I can't explain it; there was always something in the story I tried figuring out--I'm sure that's why I always asked my mom to read it to me.
I still haven't figured out what it was about the story, but when I was a kid, I wanted to be the jack rabbit with stripes and spots more than anything in the world.
Sometimes as an adult, I still do, and I don't know why...