"Space"

"I'm kinda bummed I missed the flood this year" I thought to myself while I drove down a twisting, scenic road next to the river.  I smiled to myself because I'm not sure if people would laugh at my dialect or feeling.

Take this dialect quiz to see where you're from (sorry, it's just the US).  I am clearly from Cleveland, but I could go to Toledo or Detroit without an interpreter.

At my first college party a boy said, "You're from one of those W cities by Cleveland, aren't you?"  ?!  That's a pretty specific 10 square miles in the world, and people on TV talk like me.  Mostly.  But even westsiders think I have an accent.  I don't see it since they're the ones who talk like farmers.  Sometimes people even ask if I'm British.  That's people from Cleveland, mind you.  No offense to my British friends, but I'm pretty sure you know you talk funny.  I know because I've watched all the Harry Potters.  Besides, everybody I've known since I was a kid talks my way.

As for missing the flood... well, I love the spring floods and we haven't had a good one in a long time.  Part of it's that people see my river in the summer and say ignorant things like "Aw, that's a pretty, little crick" without realizing that they're insulting and underestimating a force that I love.

Okay, it doesn't have a whole lot of water in it the summer, but it is the fastest river in Ohio -- which has to count for something.  When it freezes solid like it did this year, with many tons of snow on it, I expected a big event, but alas, I missed it.  It's a mere 6' deep now and the ice on the sides is nonremarkable and melting fast.

When I was about 10 or so, I was listening to the neighborhood men laying bets on when the ice would break.  We heard a low, moaning, creak in the dark night -- but nothing happened so they kept betting and drinking.  Creeeeak.  Hmmm... the men revised some bets.  CRACK!!!

The water oozed under the ice and we started walking slowly backwards.  The men laughed and popped open more beer.  The water kept coming, so we walked backwards a little faster.  Still coming, then really coming, and we turned around and ran as fast as we could and still barely managed to escape while the river ice folded on top of itself in a roaring blast before it broke free, smashing everything and everyone in its path.

The next day there was mud in some houses and other houses had been rearranged.  Above the river banks huge blocks of ice rose like staggering skyscrapers after the apocalypse.  Climbing those blocks was a terribly bad idea since they were super slick slides straight into the roaring river.  (Which doesn't mean I didn't try before ceding to some common sense.)  The National Weather Service says the record flood was 18' deep, but I could swear I've seen it higher.  Any way you look at it though, it's Nature's orgasm with a lot of water moving as fast as it can to Lake Erie.

Einstein used to stare at a flooding river too.  I don't think it's a coincidence he's the one who came up with E=MC².  I'm not sure how he factored space into this because the mass takes up a different amount of space depending on if it's frozen or fluid -- which was my original thought when I started writing about this, but even I've got to admit that's a really abstract thought even in my own head.

Photos are from a parking lot I was in earlier today.  Keep in mind that stuff has been rained on and melting for days!

"Space"

I shared a bedroom with my 2 older sisters when we were little.  It was a 2-bedroom house, and even though it was a fairly large room, it wasn’t big enough for that many sisters, and definitely not big enough when a brother arrived.  So, Mom and Dad added another bedroom and bath to split up the kids.  My first pick would’ve been to get rid of some of the siblings, but okay, another bed/bath is good too. 

Bro and I moved to the little bedroom in the front of the house.  That was okay for a while, but our parents didn’t share my desire for a small family, and when Bro #2 was added, I was kicked back to the big room with my sisters.  We were all bigger than the first time we were roommates, and had bigger needs.  There wasn’t enough space.  Well, there might’ve been if we were all perfectly neat and organized like Sis #1, but Sis #2 and I weren’t like that.  #1 roped off her territory with yellow police tape, but that didn’t stop #2 and I from getting into her stuff.  Trespass and punishment was a continual and epic war – with a little time out to feed the salamander, fish, turtles, and whatever else lived with us at the time.

None of us were very interested in staying in the house though.  In the day, I had the woods, and the woods is a place of many rooms.  In the most literal of ways, all of the animals have their own separate places.  The deer would mat down the grasses behind the grapevines under the trees’ canopy, and the mice and others did the same thing in miniature.  I could randomly choose 4 tree trunks as the corners of a pretend room and furnish it with sticks and rocks and carpet it with moss, but my favorite places were the hidden alcoves that let me sit in privacy with a view of the passing world.  I watched the animals and I watched the older boys building tree forts.  I left the boys flowers in their forts once in a while because they never decorated things pretty.  Girls weren’t allowed, but nobody complained to me about my flower gifts.

Sometimes I laid on my back and watched the sky, deciphering the shapes of clouds and looking into the infinity of blue.

I knew people with large estates, or bedrooms they didn’t have to share, but did they really have more than me?  Sometimes I think about how we all run around trying to earn more, buy more, more, more, more, and never really appreciate what’s free and what we already have.  We don’t let children play in the woods by themselves anymore to imagine whatever they might imagine before they’re programmed into accepting other people’s dreams.

I guess I feel a bit sad today.  A childhood friend’s mother passed away.  She was part of my old life.  She saw me skipping down the street with my bucket and fishing rod.  She gave me cookies.  I haven’t seen her for decades, but she is part of my mental Polaroid picture of childhood.  I remember the smell of her perfume, and the click of her high heels, but now she isn’t here anymore.  It feels like one of the bridges between now and childhood has fallen down like one of the boys’ forts.

I guess it all boils down to people matter, often in ways they never intended or noticed when they’re doing things.  We carry parts of those people with us until we die, and those parts are passed on to the people we’ve affected along the way, so in a way, nobody ever really disappears.  We’re all part of the infinity of blue.