"Write a letter to yourself, about yourself, boring us with every detail;
Someday I'd like to land. As bitter as I am, nothing affects me anymore"
Cave In - Innuendo and Out the Other
Sometimes I catch myself spending an inordinate amount of time zoning-out at blinking cursors against blank templates. Sometimes it's just too hard to pepper my ideas with a host of double entendres, like I'm more a cipher than author. And sometimes tangential allusions to song lyrics and arcane literature alight perspective and work better to convey certain ideas and feelings. Sometimes I don't know whether I am The Fonz, the shark or just Opie driving a boat. Nature often forces one to find their " true self," to accomplish some particular objective. It's all just a period of existential bullshit, really. The collegiate foundation of psychology converges at the axis of whether you'd rather fuck your sibling, mom; or just think life is a series of meaningless events because God is either dead or a subjective abstract concept.
To me, a refurbished classic white sports car and a tricked out bus constantly drive around in outer-space, send transmissions to the highest leaves of maple trees, which in-turn disseminate all knowledge via their roots. I once attended the Body Works exhibit at the MFAH, and a slice of human flesh revealing the circulatory and nervous system looked no different than a barren forest. And when our bodies die, they just decompose to make more earth, from which even more roots of things are borne. So, why aren't we also the earth while alive? For all I know, the outer-space car and bus exist as regular guys in everyday life, and are the conduits between the heavens and the Earth, nature and humanity, and basically, form the essence of time. Then again, nothing I just said is any different from The Beatles "Within You, Without You" - actually, sorry to digress; a few dudes on drugs fucking-around with instruments is neither here nor there when it comes to the point I'm trying to get across.
So -
Last Sunday afternoon, I was smoking a Kool 100 with my mom on the patio, waiting to check-out some old family pictures. Out of the blue, she randomly drops some shit on me that has a literal profundity of things such as the Zapruder film or Lou Gehrig's Yankee Stadium farewell speech.
Earlier in the week, she pulled into their porte-cochère after work. Essentially, it's a little parking tunnel between the first level of the house and the garage. My dad has transformed their garage into a hybrid woodworking shop, golf equipment warehouse and humidor; accordingly, since he spends most of his time there, he installed a window-unit air conditioner last summer. Though theoretically designed to fit three, the ancillary space hardly accommodates one mid-size car.
Anyway - after getting out of her SUV, she heard a "devastating" squelching noise coming from the garage. After a little detective work, there was a sparrow which had become trapped in between the the windscreen and window in the garage. Because of the a/c unit, the garage window is permanently, partially open. She assumed the bird had tried to escape the heat, but had a lapse in foresight in its haste. The space it had assumed was prohibitively small for it to spread its wings and fly away. By the time my mom discovered the bird, it was relegated to a tiny corner-space yelling for help in between gasps of dehydration and exhaustion.
By this point, as she continued the story, tears began to swell in her eyes. She hurriedly pried open the window screen, and the bird bolted into midair, but only far enough to make a dive-bomb straight into the swimming pool. She couldn't do anything but watch it flail awkwardly in the water, with barely enough energy to stay afloat... albeit fly.
The bird eventually made it to the side of the pool and perched itself on a single lump of decorative limestone for "something like thirty minutes." Finally, it spread its wings for a moment before flying up and away into the dusky air. My mom never took her eyes off the bird the whole time.
Mom and I walked back inside the house, where my dad was passed-out in his perfectly ass-contoured leather recliner. I walked over to him and gently thumped him in the balls before scurrying across the room where my mom sat with the pictures. It's funny to watch my dad wake-up after not knowing he's been asleep - it's a rare 10-or-so seconds of obliviousness that must be taken advantage of, and he lets us enjoy his temporary off-guard vulnerability.
Before dozing back into his sunburned coma, dad lets us know who's boss by unleashing a gnarly 4-second fart with his eyes closed, flipping us off with half a smile. My mom hands me the pictures; the first is a sepia-toned picture of the tiny cookie-cutter house on Slayden St. in Brownwood, TX where I grew up. A 1979 Chevy Good Times Van is parked in the driveway; Jonathan the buff cocker spaniel and Casey-Jane the rescued greyhound are lying on the cool concrete. I've just learned to walk; I'm wearing an Ohio St. ringer tee, standing in my plastic mini-pool, holding a hose with no pants on and laughing at nothing in particular.
The next picture is older. It's dusk and dad is sleeping on the couch, on his back, and I'm curled in my diaper sleeping face-down on his chest while he rests his right hand on my back. After 30 years, he hardly looks different than he does while in his recliner. Mom tells me how I used to wait behind the screen door every afternoon waiting for him to get home from work.