was supposed to go home for the fair. full car. lack of motivation. lack of funds to spend on air brushed shirts, whack-a-mole, the himalayas ride, wine slushies.
it was always better in the 80's anyway. a "family" picture. me in cut off denim short shorts, the acid washed purse, (i bought it in bloomingdale's on my first trip to ny the week before christmas in sixth grade with my grandma to see our irish cousin in port washington.), duran duran pin on the purse's strap, white tennis shoes, pre-perms but bangs were there, already perfected scowl that would become a staple. the summer before 7th grade.
when summer ended and school started i would begin to hang out with the headbanger chicks who wore too much wet n' wild black eyeliner. and would sneak to the mobile station across from clary and somehow convince the workers to sell cigarettes to a 12 year old. we'd stand in the woods, between where our school was and where the ice rink and baseball fields were. i never smoked. can't even remember the first time i tried it. probably a field party in high school? a lifetime of mom smoking and all the irish relatives who were chimneys. the habit held no real fascination for me. but still i would stand with these metallica girls while they smoked.
7th grade is probably where i went one way instead of the other. "gifted" classes. (what are these gifts? i'm still waiting. let's make a deal...) isolated from my elementary school friends, who just became faces passing in the hallways. a different socio-economic bracket. growing pains. trying to fit in. soccer team. band. advanced art classes that counted toward high school credit, so i didn't even have art at all in high school. it was music or art. not both. mutually exclusive.
went to my ten year reunion. beacuse of bad planning it was an eleven year reunion. typical. not very well attended. all but four people still lived up there. the other three besides me that got out all had kids. two live in north carolina. one in michigan. not major cities.
waiting in line for the bathroom, wishing the event was a little more grosse point blank than just a big blank. one of the aforementioned metalhead/eyeliner chicks from middle school was in line with me. she's a mom. and lives in the burbs outside syracuse. her baby's daddy was a year ahead of us in high school. the hot hockey team guy.
sarah looks at me. (i swam in a vast sea of sara(h)s and jennifers.) she smiles. and says, a bit drunk: "i always knew you'd get out. i always knew you'd do something cool."
that simple statement meant more to me than she will ever know. and she probably doesn't even remember saying it. such is life.
for o.r.p.
i hope i can be as strong as you when i'm your age.
post script...
"the first sorrow of autumn
is the slow goodbye
of the garden who stands so long in the evening
a brown poppy head
the stalk of a lily
and still cannot go
the second sorrow
is the empty feet
of a pheasant who hangs from a hook with his brothers
the woodland of gold
is folded in feathers
with its head in a bag
and the third sorrow
is the slow goodbye
of the sun who has gathered the birds and who gathers
the minutes of evening
the golden and holy
ground of the picture
the fourth sorrow
is the pond gone black
ruined and sunken the city of water
the beetle's palace
the catacombs
of the dragonfly
and the fifth sorrow
is the slow goodbye
of the woodland that quietly breaks up its camp
one day it's gone
it has only left litter
firewood, tentpoles
and the sixth sorrow
is the fox's sorrow
the joy of the huntsman, the joy of the hounds,
the hooves that pound
till earth closes her ear
to the fox's prayer
and the seventh sorrow
is the slow goodbye
of the face with its wrinkles that looks through the window
as the year packs up
like a tatty fairground
that came for the children."-t.h.
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