Which dory are you taking?
That one over there. It brings me back to see my Pop. We beachcomb for hours and he teaches me how to tie knots. I watch him gut fish and blow snot from his nose in the cold months. I hear him saw wood for the stove that my nan helps me pick up, and stack high against the fence. I watch him as he goes crazy when wrestling comes on. I love every minute of every match.
Continue reading “A Shade of Ash # 39 – A Dory of Our Life”
Ah…the old bent fishing rod. I was out for a walk a few evenings ago and midway into my stroll, I was passed by a couple of kids on their pedal bikes. I gave way to the little band of brothers and noticed something reminiscent as they zoomed on by. There were four of them. Like a moving screen grab of modern-day Stand by Me, Goonies, or IT. Or, for the younger crowd reading this post, Stranger Things. I kind of wanted to salute them in passing as they gave me a nod and went on their way. They looked like a good group of friends for sure. What struck me the most was how they had their fishing poles secured to their bikes. The fishing rods they were carrying were pointed straight up toward the sky like you would assume. Only, their rods had a massive bend at the top of them because when you pulled the line tight to fix the hook in one of the line holes, it created a slight curve. Smart move as they would have run the risk of hooking into someone or something while flying by on their journey home after a long day of adventures. Anyway, the moment those kids rode by me happened in an instant, but the flashes of memories that they had created for me lasted the rest of the night and into the process of writing this entry. I allowed that slideshow to play itself out, over and over. Like a short trailer of young episodes of my youth.
Continue reading “Second Thoughts # 7 – Fishy Past”
A white towel around my neck, my curling hair is all wet, and I’m riding my mountain bike down a quiet highway in a standing position. Ah …the way back after a summer’s day swim.
It’s well past seven, almost eight and the sun, like us, is on the way home. I’m chilly now as the sun sets. I have goosebumps and my skin is drying out from living in pond water for the last four hours. My pedal strides are lazy as I slowly catch up to join a zigzag bicycle pattern my friends have already graciously started. We laugh right away bringing up our whole day and explaining to each other like it happened years ago. Drawing out every last second of detail and sodering it unconsciously to our souls. Every one of those day-at-the-pond moments we smiled at again and again. Over and over.
The adrenaline produced from a day like that would fuel the whole trip home for us. No matter how tired we were our along-the-way stunt dares and ten-second races kept us gaining ground without even noticing how close we were getting to home. Then, most times in the middle of a good joke or a story, one by one, each of my buddies would have to start branching off. Going their “rest of the way” alone. Breaking away from the pack usually with a middle-finger gesture, a newly learned curse word, or a bodily function. Sometimes all three. Soon, I too would cross that imaginary line that separated my neighbourhood from the rest of the world. The world of a twelve-year-old Ash. I remember that day swimmingly.
This second thought was brought to you by a walk earlier today on a path less taken. There was something about the atmosphere in the moment I was in and it overwhelmed me and I was there for it. I kicked up a little dirt and it transported me. Summer is indeed in the air and given the last few weeks, I needed this memory. Thanks, universe.
Until…
It’s 8:15 P.M. on a Monday evening nineteen ninety-something, and my last load of laundry is two-quarters away from being done. I dig through a pile of old magazines and find one with a half-finished crossword. The hum of the dryer is soothing… hypnotic to a focused folder. Pearl Jam plays on a scratchy radio above the pop machine that never works. As a spring night hue casts in against a long wooden table of folded clothes and empty baskets reaching where I sat, a bell jingles. I’m the last one there. The sometimes friendly middle-aged attendant who’s been watching the one-channel TV eyeballs my sightline up the far wall across from me. Toward an overly huge numbered clock fixed on it. Below reads the hours of business. He silently without words offers me a delicate cycle amount of time by tapping his watch before my clean getaway ends its cycle. I nod in appreciation for the fifteen minutes and go back to my crossword tapping a half-chewed pen…
Let’s see… 6 Down, a bottle with a narrow neck…?
Relying solely on a section of the newspaper for a movie choice. The excitement of going down through the listings and reading the few lines of script that best described the movie with so few words. You’d spend extra time on the showings with an accompanying photo being most likely the blockbusters. Debate with your fellow movie-goer until the show times force you to pick. Shit, it’s twenty-to. We have to leave if we want to make the 6:00.
I’m telling you. It was a vibe, a feel, an event. I miss it on second thought and wish sometimes we didn’t have to go so fast. – Ash
The feeling of making it halfway to where you’re walking and realizing the rest of the way is downhill. – Ash
Those days of sitting on the curb with your childhood friends at the beginning of the warmest rain. – Ash
my winter retreat was lonely
flurries turned into storms
dark skies seemed always
cold bit me every second
ice through my veins stiffened from life
sharpen gales to cut me away
I was polar from everything
sitting barren
until her voice
her light
all that warmth from beyond
chiselled me free of that void capsule
I am her sun
she is my days
Welcome back, join me and my continuing conversation about my thoughts, feelings, and emotions to the world around me.
In this episode, I talk about how thinking about the great Christmases of the past can make you excited for the Christmases of the future. Join me for a few memories with some of the backstories. Oh, and as always, I throw in a poem, no wait, a Christmas poem for good measure.
Happy Holidays!!
under this one light
in the amber hue, I have my portal to then
an eve painted in summer
teenage banter filled the air as crushes bloomed
and comradery flourished
cool breezes were another layer of skin
traffic and the passerbys provided background noise
like an orchestra playing a scene of those wonder years
time dared not show its face where we ran, we played
all of us together having no clue one day we would grow apart
as age banished our internal youth
but for that very moment, a looping memory was being created
for everyone, I’m sure, for me… for sure
against the fade of those nights that will stand the test of tomorrows to come
I remember because each second I stand here in the illuminated golden of right now
my heart minted in aurulent
keeping this memory where I leave it
under this one light
Earth To Ash 