Conditions
Dear Eugene,
The morning gets cooler. The weatherman said the warm days are still here but the mornings are certainly getting cooler and I can feel it. I wonder what it means, the cooler, to other people.
I live in a house and the condition of my surrounding is conditioned to suit my conditions. I feel the changes in the air I suppose but they don't hurt. If they can hurt me it's because I walked out of my front door my back door and faced the unconditioned conditions. These are choices I can still make.
These little squinting eyes of mine see things. The last owner of my house covered the big sundeck above the garage and turned it into a room. This room is conditioned to be habitable, with baseboard heaters, but when it is heat you want to get rid of during summer I wouldn't waste the wheeling round of a fan head to spread the roast: it'd be like peddling ice blocks in a desert. So I use the room for storage.
There is another thing about the room. The roof leaks. But I need to qualify this condition.
Well, it leaks, for sure. Beyond dispute wetness, during rainy season. But you see, at first it was leaking so softly at a place that if not for these squinting dreamy little eyes of mine not a human synapse would have been disturbed and all life would go on without any call for reconditioning action.
Yet I see bad things, especially in the dark, the power to discern conditioned by the reflection of flickers of light, off the street, from a moving car maybe, usually, things that move and give out light. And to see is to reflect and finally act on the evil dripping in dark silence. The thick, cheap carpet would have absorbed the little water droplets and by morning time neutralized them into a happy nothing. When no brain registered them and no heart felt they are really benign accidents meant for no place in human history. If one day the carpet gives out there is always the wood and whatever there is beneath it to in turn do quiet justice and restore the conditionedness of my house, my household, my life.
Over the years I've been up the roof risking my life for no important reason, you can say, so many times that it became a tale of the absurd exists on the margin of reality. I know and dreamed about every corner shape and contour of my roof under different light of day and season, the exposed outer limit from a vantage above, not the conditioned inner security from down below, and for better or worse I've given myself as an element to sustain peace on earth and goodwill to man.
The roof by and large is not leaking anymore. I hope that won't change. We'll see when the rain comes again, soon enough, with the coolness in the air I can feel. Heavy rain could change that. Strong wind. Worse still a few mighty gods acting together. I got ideas though. I think I can outplay them.
I will meet them up there.
Yours, Alex
Dear Eugene,
ReplyDelete“I wonder what it means, the cooler [morning], to other people… The roof leaks… And to see is to reflect & finally act on the evil dripping in dark silence.”
In the vanishing solitude of predawn morning a decade past, I paced towards the bus stop a half block down the street from my Seattle apartment. The Autumn drizzle & chill cast a sheen halo above roofs shielding the dreams & pain of residents from below. The condition of the roads damp & bleak stirred a nostalgic recall of light conversations over mildly roasted coffee. Hundreds of miles north my daughter was sleeping under a blanket without my touch for months. I would soon be busing to the downtown college campus for my Organic Chem lab under another roof conditioned to spur my learning. This would be my 3rd & final post-graduate quest over a course of about 12 years possibly geared towards a career of my calling.
The conditions along the road marred visibility yet I saw bad things in the dark from my squinting dreamy little eyes: a shopping cart of treasures to a homeless man by the curb, the fumes of idling cars in premature rush hour, groans of awakening to a dreary day. The hush overnight retreated like an estranged lover as breaths & lives hidden behind windows & walls emerged into the cleansing rays of sunrise. In the hours to rise & ebb with the rhythm of footsteps, stories of hope & loss, drunken dreams & bloated promises would replay in the exposure of daylight often too invasively candid towards the conditions & corners of the heart. The unknown was harrowing. Who are you & where are you going under the cosmic roof in the noon sun?
But on that early morning, I knew I was a regrettably older student returning to college & one in critical need of a bus ride for my lab class. The urgency of my purpose-driven mission peaked when I saw the bus approaching the station before me. Missing this ride could likely have compromised my lab work & overall GPA to qualify for the next academic phase. I bounded nonsensically towards the periphery of the lane conditioned for the flow of incoming traffic & charged towards the bus, my arms flailing in animated vigor at the driver. I heard several honks & verbal outcries from commuters agitated or concerned over my condition in flight on wet asphalt. In the flicker of time among the shimmers & glow filtered through airborne droplets, I realized I was sprinting with all my might, absurdity & baggage to pursue a dream which could “restore the conditionedness of my house, my household, my life”. Run for the bus & keep it up even if there would be “heavy rain... strong wind... [and] a few might gods acting together”.
“I got ideas though” & I could outplay them. Up there on the roof between heaven & earth I would meet them with a scream resonant of life's joy & grief.
Yours, Kate