Portraits of Delight

Portraits of delight!

Oh, to squat down beside the second-to-last shelf of a midwest gift shop. A score of metal frogs of screw and nail with wild whimsy faces dwell here. They hold crude instruments and make up the members of a slipshod toadstool band. Their phillips head eyes and wire-bent arms holding cellos, trumpets, drums, and flutes of hex nuts and washers. One must imagine them playing chrome canticles for the royal courts of Midleaf Valley, or steel-pan jigs in the old saloons of Stained Glass Gorge. Perhaps their patrons reward their sonic excellence with delicious wing-nuts that resemble flies, or a jovial “shot of elbow grease on the house!” They live the rich lives of troubadours, unaware of the miles of golden grain around them in all directions. 

Oh, to have that cowboy dream again. The one where I’m tall and sun soaked, riding into a small town without a name. I meet a stable boy and learn that there’s trouble down at the saloon. He takes my horse and gives me a game token, “for luck an’ all.” It’s no difficult thing to trust a boy like this one. I bust in the double doors to the saloon and find thirty bankers in clean, black suits standing around a pile of money on jewels. They have cartoonishly large and evil mustaches. I can’t take them all, can I? I spin on my heel and run, my legs barely keeping up with the brim of my hat. They chase me into a dense jungle and then up to the sheer edge of a cliff thousands of feet above the South Sinta Sea. A banker catches up to me and tackles me off the edge without a moment’s hesitation. In the long seconds of freefall, I see that I am looking at myself in the eyes of my water’s twin. I usually wake up when I hit the water, sweaty. 

Oh, to sit in silence with an old friend drinking shitty beer and smelling of bug spray. Nothing new to say, nothing needed to be said. Just contentedness shared between us like a raft floating on a decade of trust. There are crickets and moths. And the dog I’m watching for a few days while my neighbors are out of town is digging a hole that even she believes won’t go anywhere. I have to imagine my friend’s thoughts drift off as mine do. Sometimes I think about the gap between wanting to understand and being unable to- that quintessential human problem- and the silly rituals we have to try to bridge that gap. Other times I think about dragons. The stars matter less when you are clad in midnight black plate armor, drawing your vorpal sword at the base of a manxome foe. Deviled egg aromas waft in on the night air, and to my horror my old friend is smiling at me devilishly.

Oh, to walk through the ache of travel-sore feet, knowing well that they have carried me to the present. I wade and wander through the thick humid air of a southern summer night. I pass a group of businessmen sitting on the curb, ties undone, stripped back down to the neighborhood kids they once were. Their cigarettes loud, their giggles quiet. Whether my feet are bringing me to or from something is unclear and frankly quite irrelevant. I just step, moving patient with the vagrants, streetlights, and squeaky trains. Sometimes a street is dark and for a second I fear, but I’m almost always okay. And oh! Rejoice! A neon yellow beacon of good-fortune. The vagabond’s sanctuary. The insomniac’s promised land.

‘WAFFLE HOUSE’ 

A sleepy All-Star Special is special. I get chocolate milk with mine. 

Oh, to be soaked to the bone, wet shirts stuck to laughing bellies. It’s cold, really cold, but how can I mind? We’re in this together, trying not to think about how long our shoes will take to dry. Eclectics have adorned the trail with doll heads and shattered shrines. Broken glass mosaics on the trunks of old trees harbor a thousand black drops that reflect our flashlights back at us. The strange is more familiar when I’m with you. Rolling, rampant thunder fills my chest and yours. And though it is few and far between, the world will occasionally show off its perfection. In this moment, only to us, the sky opens up, pouring out a trickle of light that realizes the wall of rain, high and dense above us. It is striking.

Oh, to visit with my great grandmother, listening to dusty stories from before the house was sold. Through slow and labored words she describes the surreality of having geriatric children. My grandfather, apparently, was quite wild as a boy, despite his deep wrinkles now. She offers me a donut hole and insists that I eat as many as I’d like. I think it’s really an excuse to remind herself to sneak another donut hole while her aide isn’t looking. She’s cheeky like that.  I used to do crossword puzzles with her, but she enjoys them less now that she doesn’t know the name of the actors in “all these new superhero movies nowadays.” I don’t blame her. I’m not a big fan of the new superhero movies nowadays either. I help her sit up in her hospital bed and give her an awkward bent-over hug goodbye. I’m looking forward to seeing her again. She smiles fondly and tells me that she’s ready to die. 

Oh, to move slow. To breathe mindfully. To sit and see and listen. And to embrace the wild complexity of feeling. Here thunder and lightning roll off of low mountain clouds. I sit with myself, being uncomfortable. Being okay. And being content with that. Letting myself sink deep into a melancholic relaxation. Unfocusing. Absorbing. Letting the bugs crawl out. Thinking of how grateful I am to be here. The petrichor to compliment a quiet drone of frogs. The condensation on the lemonade glass. The alone. The rain. The relief.