There is no shortage of benches along the canal path where I walk. Some are old, graffitti’d, and splintered while others are fairly new, and made of smooth blue metal. What’s rare is to find a single soul sitting in any of them. Such emptiness would be enough to make anyone feel lonely if they weren’t already, so sometimes I’ll stop, sink into one, take a sip of tepid water and wait for a cool river breeze. Sometimes it never comes and I just lean back and drift into the long lush silence of trees.
Rain fell. Rivers rose. Dams burst. Bridges crumbled. Roads vanished. Homes were washed away. Lives were washed away, too.
Some heeded the warnings. Others never got them. Some found higher ground. Others drowned. There was no negotiating. No launching of missiles. No military force great enough to poke the eye of the angry mother in her warring hour.
What was once the hunter and the hunted is today the watcher and the watched. While the majestic jungle king I came here to see leers directly over at me from across the moat, licking his chops, salivating while likely considering what a tasty meal I’d make, I along with about fifty others stand in place like ripe fruit on a high branch, clicking our expensive cameras and smart phones. We stand here free of care, if not for a quivering thought of our ancient ancestors who from this proximity would’ve stood dry mouthed, frozen in fear, raising the spear, or more wisely still, preparing to run for their precious lives.
Some call it forest bathing, or so I’ve heard. I don’t call it much of anything, which is more to the point. I’m sitting here alone on this stump, and now it’s beginning to rain, not such a shame as you might think.
The woods are humming with life and nature’s sweetest scents are all on offer here. I could be in a dozen other places doing a dozen other things that should be done, but today, this is where I’ve chosen to be; a place where I can just be.
Standing before a large map on the wall, I trace serpentine lines with my left index finger across all the places I’d go if I only had the time and freedom to roam. Maybe someday I’ll see these places as more than red and blue arteries stretching across oddly shaped borders. It suddenly occurs to me that I’ve been mapping destinations most of my life. Speaking of life, will there be enough left in me by the time I’m deemed old enough to kick away these boots I’ve been wearing since I became a man in need of belonging?
The flood of austere streetlights cuts through the black of a moonless, starless night, projecting monstrous shadows onto fresh pavement; the row of tall oaks yielding to a stiff north wind. But just up the hill, a half mile or so, is where the single well-lit porch, the faintly glowing front window, the well-worn red door, the well-loved faces behind it, are waiting to let me in.
This is where I begin, by tuning out to tune in, shutting my eyes from the light, opening the cage of my mind for imagination to fly. All perceptions are suddenly ruled by rhythms, little flourishes of sound, and through this voluntary blindness, I’m unbound from what might otherwise be diminished from this moving mosaic behind my eyelids.
I found a trace of inspiration behind death’s door, within the walls of a musty room on the ground floor, scattered amongst the tomes of displaced thought. From this cemetery of old books rose a simple turn of phrase that shook me out of my malaise, moved the hand that clutched the pen until a shallow breath of life was breathed again.
The little yellow cottage on the hill, I saw it once in a dream that felt so real, though it’s a place I know I’ve never been. And what if I never have that dream again? Does such a place in the world exist outside of my own head? Somehow, I hope it does, and I hope to find you still paddling for shore in that little blue canoe when I get there.
What is night but another burned-out day clad in dancing shoes and a sleek black party dress, hair down, rife with life and drunken laughter, swaying gracelessly and uninhibited to the floor pulsing beats.
Until at last, the music stops. The bands and the DJs pack up. The raucous voices gradually fade; the laughter, always the last to die, as it should be.
Then the streets become eerily quiet, though not for very long because another dawn is creeping just beyond those darkest hours.
Soon, birds are stirring in the trees, filling the air with songs of a different nature as the next party begins and the last of the night creatures crawl back into their caves.
Just an old shed is left to stand against the slow invasion of termites and weeds and time. The house is gone, and has been for years.
Once I drove past where it used to be on my way to nowhere in particular and nearly drowned in a flash flood of memory.
We lived in the apartment upstairs where the fire was said to have started. Maybe arson. Maybe a careless cigarette left burning. Nobody knows.
We lived there when my children were still children. In the mornings I waved them off from the end of the driveway, giving good fortune little more than a parting glance as the school bus rolled away.
I remember the night my ex-wife called to tell me about the fire, how she and her mother stood on the side of the road, watching with tears in their eyes as the flames consumed it all – the place where we once ate and slept and watched our kids grow.
Out in the middle of that wild field my daughter spent hours jumping on a trampoline. My son shagged fly balls on crisp spring nights, balls I hit out to him while practicing for Little League. The woods out back must be full of rotting baseballs.
A few days after the fire, I pulled into the driveway and stared at what remained. Before leaving I snapped a few photos. I can’t remember why. Maybe as proof that we were ever there at all, how far we’ve drifted since, innocence lost along the way.
Haunted Avenues 