i went into a Barnes and Noble yesterday
and, as a friend stated,
it was unnaturally normal.
the stacks were all stacked,
sales, clean shelves, bright lights,
like they had just shut down regularly one night
and opened the next day with everyone wearing masks.
and i bought too many books
(potentially to make up for my spouse not being there;
our usual date night: book shopping)
and we still had our membership active
(as if the last year and a half on pause hadn’t even happened)
the normalcy
is throwing me
eating under an umbrella at a bar/grill,
pushing strollers through outdoor malls,
playing on communal playgrounds…
don’t misunderstand me,
i am fully vaccinated,
and i am aware of how the virus spreads
and the evidence of safety in small outdoor gatherings,
and i am beyond grateful for how things have worked out
and that i finally get to hug my friends tight
(touch being my romantic and platonic love language)
but i’ve lived a year and a half in unknowns
(we all have)
of trying to be as careful as possible and then some
knowing not everyone “believes” in this clearly observable fact,
this virus killing thousands (and leaving more with irreversible repercussions)
so i am used to being overly cautious
and this exploration into ‘normal’
…i am absolutely waiting for the other shoe to drop.
figuring out our foundations;
both of us grew up
just outside of a suburban border
(not quite country)
and staying in green
with bugs
and wildlife
and stars and sky
feels so good
but also,
after a year and a half in The City
(The City that Never Sleeps, The Big Apple, The Greatest City in the World)
we can’t imagine living anywhere else.
we would miss the convenience of walking to get everywhere,
an actually useful public transportation system,
the resilience of all the people,
observing those completely unlike you
(and seeing dozens of people exactly like you,
no matter how unique you think you are)
(how quickly New York steals your heart)
made a friend with a cicada
helped it get back on its feet
it became so excited it crawled up my arm
and stared at me while i worked on a digital zine.
made a friend with a cat
(not the cat our host expected to be needy and affectionate)
and she decided my lap was not where the laptop should go,
the lap was where she should be for the rest of the afternoon.
made a friend with another cicada
as it flew full force at my head
and landed on my bright orange hood
and refused to leave until my spouse gently pulled it off
tried to make friends with every lizard who crossed my path
but they clearly had important places to be
so i tried to let them go on their way
(but still i watched them with glaring curiosity)
even more tired
this morning
than yesterday.
when’s the last time we stayed up
till past 2am?
i literally cannot remember.
we are the early-risers,
the morning people,
the dawn folk,
and yet
i come from the theater,
my job, my career, all my peers
are night owls
and as long as there are wide spaces between,
or at least an opportunity to nap
the following day,
it’s invigorating to feed off their energy
(and their Old Bay fries.)
our dog
is a beach dog
but not an ocean dog
although
she treats the sand like snow,
rolling around in it,
licking it up and eating it,
rolling around some more in order to get out of her eyes that sand from the first roll
and even though we had to pull her away from that joy,
and even though we had to rinse out her eyes so they would stop swelling,
it was worth it to see her jump around like a puppy
(and to see folks’ faces erupt in surprise when we tell them
“this dog is thirteen years old [today]!”)
~~~
i didn’t realize
love languages show up
so early
but damn if that
less-than-two-year-old
didn’t hand off his juice,
and blanket,
and bag of apples
the minute he decided
he liked us.
~~~
arriving home
far too late
making eye contact
with a young buck
as he munches on leaves,
hardly concerned we’re twenty feet away
(as my dog remains frozen with the decision
of whether to chase this creature
as friend or prey)
wake up
in a new place
(having stayed up too late
in another new place)
but seeing old friends
is more than worth it.
travels usually take
hours upon hours upon hours
(our go-to vacation spots/chill with family spots
have historically taken 8-ish hours.)
(tack onto that traffic/stops with dog/
my tiny bladder/
mostly traveling in seasons bombarded with snow;
our bodies are prepared for travel
to be the only event in a day.)
so when a “vacation trip” takes four/four and a half hours
(five-fifteen with stops/the traffic that inevitably erupts around nyc)
there is an excess of energy when we arrive at our destination.
but the question for tonight was:
“is that enough to meet one young child and two toddlers?”
and the answer was,
unequivocally
“yes!”
[although the dog with bows through her fur
may profess otherwise]
looking forward
to being in Maryland
for many reasons
(one of which is being reunited with my
BROTHER)
(another is being able to hold
My Son
once more),
but also because
it means
i’ll have some travel
to poem about
to put into this
(originally conceived of)
travel
poetry
blog.
i owned a pair of sneakers
inside which i hiked all around
the Australian outback.
i don’t remember if i bought them white on purpose
or not
but they eventually became shaded
rust
from the red dirt
of the outback
and my friends and i laughed
at the customs forms
asking if we were bringing back
any flora/fauna/soil,
because that red dust was embedded
into every article of clothing
and down to our very souls
by that point.
it eventually washed out of fabric,
but every time i wore those shoes
the red just seemed to embed itself
deeper
and my style changed
as the years went by,
and i didn’t wear anything on my feet
except my [off-brand] converse low-tops,
and later my vegan leather boots,
but i vowed to keep those formerly white tennis shoes
so i could always have the reminder of
how i felt in the outback.
i have no idea where those sneakers are today.
they might still be in my childhood closet,
sitting there, keeping my dad company
(solely by proximity),
or we might have packed them in a plastic bag,
and dropped them off at a Goodwill,
and someone might have gotten them,
and the shoes might be walking around right now,
or they might have already been tossed out…
and i think about how many times i looked at those shoes,
contemplating giving them up,
and i thought the point of the memories
was to keep the physical reminder of them
but i think
that if you have the memories strong enough
the reminders
aren’t always completely necessary…
…maybe?
kipventures 