Acceptance

The background on my cell phone is an accurate representation of the weather as it is happening outside in real time. This has been going on for weeks with zero input from me. While at first I didn't know what to do or how I felt about it (it is difficult to express how this makes me feel), I've grown to accept and even enjoy the weather as it is represented on my cell phone. It, by it's very presence, assumes that I am always wondering about the weather which I've decided is 'funny' (and have added to the list of things I'll laugh about later). On average I look to my cell phone, to this particular screen with it's spot-on, constantly updated, intuitively generated replica of today's weather hundreds of times per day. I do it not to see if it's still sunny or warm outside so much as to be reassured that there still is weather outside. And the blue background (given specific coordinates, time of day, season and relative cloudiness) that is meant to represent the current sky-scape with it's various shades of blue and gray and it's, quite frankly, breathtaking sun icon (which is always right there in the center except after sundown when, without any fanfare, it becomes the moon) not only has the local weather down but, somehow, seems to understand me, too. In summary, my cell phone which renders simple, accurate representations of the weather wherever I am without my permission, any self-aggrandizing humble-brag nonsense or so much as a peep--knows. It just knows. And I've grown to accept and even enjoy the weather as it is rendered on my cell phone without any input from me. 

Unknowable Soup

soup!
this soup is my rainbow
this soup is my sun
this is why I return to the 7-11
soup
I just walk in
go right past the Doritos 
barely nod at the Ajax
and then 
the spicy noodle bowl aisle
so colorful
so plentiful
I take one down from the shelf
turn it over 
searching it
thinking about it 
these spicy noodles 
no, this isn't really soup 
this plastic, shrink wrapped 
$6.00 bowl 
this is a slick vehicle 
to an unknown destination
this soup, if we can even call it 
that, is the future 
as it unfolds in 
the imagination's memory
this soup is a killer 
this soup is jamais vu
and it will be the end of me 
this spicy noodle bowl

Driving Home

Fake grape flavored wax candy melted 
in the back seat window
leftover, diagonally cut tomato sandwiches   
unwrapped and covered in sand 
a bottle of coconut suntan oil shattered  
on wet-foot-print pavement 
we were driving home 
in the great big Kojak car 
the plastic beach ball still warm from the sun
and one deflated vinyl seahorse 
that smelled artificial and so happy.
like a sun-induced headache
like endless blue summer skies.  

Assignment Complete

You are a molded papier mache ticker-tape creature. A beating heart. A million ideas and observations pressed together in your ready-brain. You are super awareness. A secret weapon. The finished product of all of their training. Broken down. Built back up. Created like magic as though out of thin air. You are invisible as you wait in the old vestibule watching headlights illuminate sparkling rain. It is right then that all the pieces seem to fit together. You step out the door and down the street with your head up and your eyes looking straight ahead. Looking like no one. Looking like you could be anyone. Fifteen minutes later the orange juice and the carton of eggs are on the motion sensitive conveyor. The transaction goes down without incident. You don't blink an eye. Finally, you get your change, your receipt and take your bag and leave the premises at a steady, normal pace. Assignment complete. For now, that is.

A Foregone Conclusion

When I was little, a restaurant named Zuppa's opened up in an old storefront near where we lived. I remember noticing from the street, even as we raced by, my mom semi-dragging me by the elbow, that Zuppa's had abandoned many of the contrivances of 1960's restaurant design. All the old, safe concepts--the cooled down colors, the thick, unifying coats of white paint, the ubiquitous white table cloths were gone. Instead, Zuppa's interior glowed with warmth. The walls were rough, ocher colored and outlined by dark wood trim. And the room was faceted by the sparkle of candles, rich textures and colors.


When Zuppa's opened in the fall, they put fairy lights in the trees just outside pulling this magic out into the street for everyone to enjoy. The effect was inviting and maybe even a tiny bit shocking at the time. Had they actually put Christmas lights up before Halloween? On deciduous trees?! It didn't matter, though. The incredible smell of velvety tomato sauces, roasted garlic, fresh baked bread, steamed muscles, braciole, mushrooms melting in butter with white wine mesmerized the neighborhood. People went in the door of Zuppa's--in out from the cold--laughing amongst themselves, leaving behind their own trail of wonderful suede and lemony perfume. These were people that were just that much younger than my parents. These were people that I was going to be one day. 


This version of adulthood--which I, for whatever reason, projected onto the patrons of Zuppa's--contained no years of struggle, no troubled friends, no loneliness, no searching. This version of adulthood as imagined by a nine-year-old contained no bad people, no great-big mistakes, no strife. It was simply 1) four years of college (bangs, Levis, Addidas and probably Love's Baby Soft) followed by 2) being a grown-up (cashmere sweaters, Joan & David and most certainly Chanel No. 5). 'Grown-up' being that juncture in one's life that directly follows childhood. That juncture where one not only has everything figured out but also has great hair, a career and a small circle of happy, supportive friends.    


One day I was going to get to Zuppa's. It was true. And this meant many things that I never literally put into words so much as knew or felt. It was just that every single time I walked past Zuppa's this goal, this image of idealized adulthood was reinforced in my mind as always out there somewhere in the future. The events that would connect those dots were still uncertain. And, although those grown-ups (as found at Zuppa's) had some hard to define quality, it wasn't about one's station in life, necessarily, or success. It was something about being perfectly comfortable in the world. About laughing. About being happy. And I, too, would get there, one day. I had it all worked out.