Weekend streets

The quiet weekend streets of this town ask me to walk down the painted lines or pedal my bicycle in lazy arcs. The leaves are fallen and blown and grown anew, the old faded skeletons picked up either by hand or that loud monthly truck that the signs warn of. New electric green leaves are bending lightly overhead. I'm on my way nowhere really. I have a couple lists in my pocket for grocery and hardware stores, the library and bank, for the corner liquor. It's my weekend and I have nothing to do but follow water with coffee and coffee with tea and juice and eggs. There's four cups back home holding different purposes.

The weekend warriors are parked elsewhere. How strange the way America's wealth manifested itself in the second and third homes of McCall, Jackson, Bend, and our beloved Tahoe. They're there now surrounded by their stuff. I can only imagine how many garage door buttons some people have on the passenger visor...

I'm still dreaming of my great escape, though every year that notion becomes a little more distant. As I near thirty I begin to truly feel assimilated, planted, and strangely content in this thin, imperfect skin. This body will do. Now what to do with it.

I'm the youngest of a philistine triad from the pacific northwest. We ran around like wild things and it's really a miracle we ever became socialized, civilized, functional. When I was young I acquired a secret strength drawn from items and acts. I would will it and use it for my own good and those that I cared about. I was reckless, fearless, and not afraid to fail because I assumed I would, that it was only a matter of time.

Some days, depending on his mood, my brother would let me dig through his dresser drawers and find some piece of clothing to borrow for the day. I felt older and more confident in his loose-fitting shirts and baggy shorts. I imagine now that I looked ridiculous or depending on the angle, like just another kid in his older brother's clothes, but to me in those moments I felt like a new person. I felt invincible. It changed my day, it determined my day. I still search for that feeling and sometimes I can find it in something like a new haircut or the final words of a novel, when I step out alone to see the night sky, or best when I'm driving and someone special has their hand on the back of my neck and just in that moment I feel I can finally stop being me and be us.