Second Look (for LJIdol SCI)
I was walking down the street one day, happy as a clam. My life was going pretty well; I had found an apartment all my own. My first solo living space. If you count living with parents, I had never once in my life lived alone so this was indeed a momentous achievement. I had become employed recently as well. I was finally going to be a waitress. Having worked in kitchens for the past five years I was itching to try out the one position in the whole restaurant that is social. I would finally be smiling at people, running back and forth, using my charm and maybe making friends. I had a new boyfriend. We had met on the street one day while I was walking about. He asked me a question (I don’t recall what) and the next thing you know, we’re laughing and holding hands and it's evening and we’re going to my (!) apartment to talk more and then its five in the morning and he’s going home and I’m all rosy just thinking about him. “I hope we kiss soon,” I keep thinking. The idea gives me delicious shivers. So of course, I try to imagine it as often as possible. I also had a new best friend. I met him through the theater company I had joined. Yet again something I stumbled upon; hanging with a homeless friend who told me I could walk him to rehearsal and then I’m talking to the director and then I’m giving an improv performance and then I’m having a part written around me and my abilities and then I’ve inherited a gaggle of new friends and then I’m going to an after-show party and then I’m walking drunkenly back home with a great guy who figures out we live down the street from each other and then we find an old mail cart and take turns riding in it all the way to our block and then its morning and he’s writing down my address and phone number and then we’re hugging and I know this man is going to be my best friend forever no matter what happens.
Also, it must be said, it was a GORGEOUS day. Living in the college area of town meant grass and trees and art and beauty everywhere. I could become a ballerina dancing through all the joy I had in me. I felt it in the way I breathed, even. The very air was clean and enriching.
I was twenty years old. I had moved to a wholly new state and was living on my own, finally. Life was definitely giving me smiles.
As I walked down the street, humming and smiling and occasionally imagining kissing my boyfriend, I looked down for a half-breath and something flashed by in my field. I was moving at a brisk pace so it was several steps before I even slowed.
“there was a yellow rose on the sidewalk,” I realized, “a beautiful yellow rose lying alone on an empty sidewalk”
I stopped.
“what an odd thing to find,” I thought, “a lone piece of transported loveliness left behind?”
I turned around.
“why would a single yellow rose be lying on the sidewalk?” I wondered.
Red Roses are given and received as a token of love. Yellow roses, though, that complicates things. Yellow roses are unusual enough that I couldn’t be sure they would be given only in love. Perhaps appreciation? Respect for the dead? There was a graveyard within a half mile of me, that was true. But still, a *single* yellow rose? and nothing else?
My eyes hit the ground, sweeping side to side as I walked, slowly because I didn’t want to step on it, crush it, ruin any of the story that would be lying there with that flower. And there was a story, of that I was certain. I had to have that story. Stories, for me, were food, and I was hungry. I knew there would be some way of finding the story in that lone yellow rose. Whoever left it there couldn't have done so on purpose. I needed to see the rose as it lay, though, to see it in its original state of regret.
What was it?
Tossed aside in anger? A belligerent dare to "make amends with words not petty objects!"
A rejected offering? An accusing finger pointing toward the broken heart for all the world to see. "I cannot take this any more than I can take your heart"
Dropped unknowingly? A tear on the face of one who swears not to grieve. "I will show my strength and bring only the finest flowers in state"
So many possible stories... I became excited at the mystery. I would stand over the rose, perhaps crouch down briefly like a detective looking for clues, and I knew I could piece something together. The validity didn’t matter so much as the story I would discover. Then I could share it. And I would bring the rose with me when I told the story... make it real in my own mind as well as my listeners... oh this was going to be wonderful... more beauty and fun in my life - as if it could possibly get any better!
I stopped finally, as I had reached the spot.
My eyes saw the rose.
Then My eyes refocused and I saw truly, with the second look. What did I see?
I saw a leaf delicately positioned across a crack in the sidewalk. Just a leaf. It did look remarkably like a yellow rose, but it wasn’t, it was a leaf.
There was no story here.
For the first time in days, I felt a little sad.
Until I got to my best friend’s apartment and told him *this* story.
“wow,” he said, “what a neat story. you should write that down”
And there was no more sadness... the rose gave me a story after all.
Also, it must be said, it was a GORGEOUS day. Living in the college area of town meant grass and trees and art and beauty everywhere. I could become a ballerina dancing through all the joy I had in me. I felt it in the way I breathed, even. The very air was clean and enriching.
I was twenty years old. I had moved to a wholly new state and was living on my own, finally. Life was definitely giving me smiles.
As I walked down the street, humming and smiling and occasionally imagining kissing my boyfriend, I looked down for a half-breath and something flashed by in my field. I was moving at a brisk pace so it was several steps before I even slowed.
“there was a yellow rose on the sidewalk,” I realized, “a beautiful yellow rose lying alone on an empty sidewalk”
I stopped.
“what an odd thing to find,” I thought, “a lone piece of transported loveliness left behind?”
I turned around.
“why would a single yellow rose be lying on the sidewalk?” I wondered.
Red Roses are given and received as a token of love. Yellow roses, though, that complicates things. Yellow roses are unusual enough that I couldn’t be sure they would be given only in love. Perhaps appreciation? Respect for the dead? There was a graveyard within a half mile of me, that was true. But still, a *single* yellow rose? and nothing else?
My eyes hit the ground, sweeping side to side as I walked, slowly because I didn’t want to step on it, crush it, ruin any of the story that would be lying there with that flower. And there was a story, of that I was certain. I had to have that story. Stories, for me, were food, and I was hungry. I knew there would be some way of finding the story in that lone yellow rose. Whoever left it there couldn't have done so on purpose. I needed to see the rose as it lay, though, to see it in its original state of regret.
What was it?
Tossed aside in anger? A belligerent dare to "make amends with words not petty objects!"
A rejected offering? An accusing finger pointing toward the broken heart for all the world to see. "I cannot take this any more than I can take your heart"
Dropped unknowingly? A tear on the face of one who swears not to grieve. "I will show my strength and bring only the finest flowers in state"
So many possible stories... I became excited at the mystery. I would stand over the rose, perhaps crouch down briefly like a detective looking for clues, and I knew I could piece something together. The validity didn’t matter so much as the story I would discover. Then I could share it. And I would bring the rose with me when I told the story... make it real in my own mind as well as my listeners... oh this was going to be wonderful... more beauty and fun in my life - as if it could possibly get any better!
I stopped finally, as I had reached the spot.
My eyes saw the rose.
Then My eyes refocused and I saw truly, with the second look. What did I see?
I saw a leaf delicately positioned across a crack in the sidewalk. Just a leaf. It did look remarkably like a yellow rose, but it wasn’t, it was a leaf.
There was no story here.
For the first time in days, I felt a little sad.
Until I got to my best friend’s apartment and told him *this* story.
“wow,” he said, “what a neat story. you should write that down”
And there was no more sadness... the rose gave me a story after all.