Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Those Fateful Blue Eyes...

It happens sometimes. I’m parked in sweaty -bumper- to -vibrating -bumper traffic and the license tag in front of me reads….3J9 SEA….and my feet are scooped out from under me, and I’m getting road rash from the rush of crushed shells swirling under me as I try to stop myself from giving into the …

Undertow.

One tiny word embedded in a bent up license tag and I’ve left the five o’clock traffic and I’m drifting into a never forever land where the seaweed is wadded up in my hair, and the sticky yicky surface under my toes is an oriental rug of dancing jellyfish, and I’m bouncing madly in a sea I have no control over. My elbows bounce over thousand year old conchs and I flip and swallow water and spew at the sky like a hump back whale. I’m floating now…..

And then we move.

The Toyota in front of me shifts lanes abruptly.
I pound the brakes. And we are frozen again.

Bored, I hit the scan button on the radio. Search for the traffic report. The digital monitor blurs past a dozen channels. No news is good news. It stops.. Flashes.

Jethro Tull is on the radio.

This is news? The traffic report? I’m standing in a dirt driveway, skint knees and peasant blouse, leaning on a BF flyer, smoking a cigarette. “ Don’t mind me crashing at all. Nice to meet you”. I’m 17 again, and in the tainted sunlight of the bumper in front of me, I see Chris smiling. And I hear him saying “Nice to meet you, too”. I’m watching him, his face on the tailgate, distorted by the slowly rolling UPS truck in the lane next to me.

The light changes and he disappears.

It happens sometimes. I’m in the damndest places and I feel it. It’s not deja vue, it’s not a memory, it’s an umbilical cord…..tethering me back to where I belong, where I came from…it’s a cord cut short in an instant . A moment suspended by circumstance, left standing at the alter, waiting…for ressurrection or reincarnation or as a just reminder that life goes on…

I saw her that day at the corner store. My dear missed Nadine. Clicking her tiny high heels in front of me, faster than I could ever keep up. Flicking her ashes in the wind. Eating black eyed peas on New Year’s day. Reminding me over a static filled phone line that she would call me when she needed me. I saw her that day in your fateful blue eyes. I hope it’s not too much of a burden.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

I saw those eyes...they had a light and a fire to them...cooled by sky-meets-the-sea blue...not filled with intent & lost angst, like Roger Daultry's, but with the wisdom & the wildness of Mick Jagger's laughing eyes.
Rock On.

me and the other me said...

you've gotta be sisters. how else could i connect with two such amazing writers in such a strange place? i read your words and think "i am the lost one. i was the one who died. or maybe i was just in a parallel universe watching or living" because it's all so easy for me to remember too.
lisa

singleton said...

Now we can rock on...

Justgivemepeace said...

guys, i dialed a wrong number today and got someone else's voice mail...the voice clicked on and her words tumbled out..."Hi! You've reached Nadine's voicemail, if you need me leave a message and I'll get back with you..."
I didn't leave a message.
But I need you girl...
i know they don't have answering machines in heaven....
but can you hear me now?

Anonymous said...

no angst, no sweat, no been-there-done-that, sometimes you get what you need....

Anonymous said...

that word "angst" keeps popping up, and you are absolutely right, blue eyes, I don't want it....but I'm not sure I want what I need! lol!