I remember those Saturday nights we’d walk home together. In the lull of a quiet harbour. Watch a boat go out or watch the one cab we had drive down the south side. Laughing, carrying on with each other, and three sheets to the wind. Sometimes we would talk the ears off each other, other times you were too contrary. But, I would always make you laugh until you were over it.
Our strolls home from a party, a wedding dance, or the club were where our friendship grew the most. How comforting it was to have you as my best friend. You’ll always be my best friend, but I miss you and being alone under a streetlight at night still makes me mad…
A rocking chair and the gap between your stories. I hung in that quiet and on your every last word. Your voice for my heart, your silence for my soul. Then, it was time for tea…
Newfoundlanders and Labradorians have a saying, “Some day on clothes.” It’s a way to describe the weather. A fine day to pin some clothes on the line to dry. It can also be a way to describe how you’re feeling, as explained by the nice man in the video I’ve left for you below. By the way, that YouTube channel has a lot of our culture, history, and gorgeous scenery if you’re interested. Yes, the people of my beautiful island have always emoted using cultural phrases which are associated with everyday experience. When we have a feeling to share, there’s usually a Newfoundland and Labrador way of saying it.
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.
Red sky evenings I remember them stretched highway at eight o’clock over the overpass to watch there is one last summer night coming out to play my pace quickens to catch up traffic flies by this one road boy who is wandering far from what he can recognize adventure must be the same no matter where you are until I pass by an old train track that divided two kinds no friends from either so I move on you could hear blades of grass keep a cool breeze in check slowing down seconds for teenagers of the land to win toys, steal kisses, and lose ice cream it is impossible to be this alone with Carnival noises filling the air but the lights threaten shadows the stars show up, crowds filter, I am lost walking forever on the eve of September heading back to the red road toward home
four shadows passing by midnight the king, the jack, the ace, and the joker pushing and shoving…jousting in jest their laughter lulling the moon as street lights froze everything in time and the world just slept shuffle and stroll in the wake of the chopping shore they poked and praised, challenged some more free until the sun began to peek then they retreat with the dampening dew enough stories for a thousand tomorrows from a single night a key to a forever yesterday
Earth To Ash 