crawlers

Yesterday was a quiet Sunday. I wrote and baked bread and stole away for a pint at my local while the bread cooled. I sat at the end of the bar and made some scribbles in a notebook, outlining a chapter with some details, happy with the flow of it. There were arrows and bullet points and even something verging on a diagram. It's the 'history' chapter of the book. Since it isn't a fiction, I feel more comfortable doing all this laying out of things. It wouldn't do for me to put the Battle of Dunkirk (very different from the evacuation) before the Albigensian Crusades in a fit of writing fervour, as the former took place nearly 400 years after the latter. 

While scribbling notes and sipping a pint, an army of neck-tied student pub-crawlers invaded the quiet confines of the local. I think it was a rowing team, but if so there were too many coxes. They were loud and drank Fosters and every time I thought that must be all of them, more arrived. Soon the bar was packed, and they just seemed to get louder. One or two gave a couple of locals a bit of lip, and for a split second it looked like it would get a bit messy at the other end of the bar. I just kept scribbling.

They left faster than they arrived, off to annoy some other folks enjoying a quiet Sunday pint. The echo of the door shutting behind them was followed by a loud 'What a bunch of cocks' from on of the guys at the other end of the bar. I shut my notebook and nursed the very end of my pint, remembering that it wasn't all that long ago that I was like that. Bursting into bars, thinking I owned the place. Possessing no volume control and the firm belief that everything I uttered was important.

I always drank better beer, of course, but still. 

And now I'm the quiet, grumpy one at the bar, trying to ignore them, cursing their invasion of my little corner of the world. And they don't give a shit.

Which is fine. When I was their age, I didn't give a shit either.

 

long goodbyes

So I've had a couple of those goodbyes recently. They were simple and short. In no way commensurate to what was said goodbye to. There was beer; whisky. So much more left unsaid than said. I've run out of fingers to save the pages of all the chapters of my life I'm moving on from. 

maintenance and giant magnets

Today I posted my watch to the manufacturer for a service. It's a nice watch, a present from my folks for my 30th birthday, and it bothers me when it's not working. I like the weight of it on my wrist, but not enough to wear it when it can't tell me the time. And so I dispatched it in the hopes it will be back soon, good as new.

Soon my camera will need the same. The pre-sets have gone funny and as such I can only shoot in manual mode. I should have sent it off ages ago, but I hate not having it around, especially if I'm going somewhere. It's like leaving the house without a pen or a notebook. Should something happen, I would only have my memory to record it.

As I type this on my iPad, my laptop scans a hard drive for erased and damaged photos, about 500 gigs worth. It's a slow process, the scan, that leads to another slow process, the recovery. Once they're both complete comes the re-organising, which is also slow but more rewarding than the first two as it's something I actually do myself. I don't send anything away and I need not cross my fingers and hope that the software doesn't crash 48 hours and halfway through the scan (which has happened three times now). That level of control and self-determination is somewhat comforting.

Tomorrow I drive up north to a small hospital for an MRI. Just before New Years, I sensed a small itch on my back, just below my right shoulder. As of now, about 40-50% of the right side of my body is either numb or has that odd tingly-ness that comes just before pins and needles. The progression has been slow and consistent whilst my dry neurologist's theories have ranged from benign to rather scary. My blood tests came back negative for viruses and vitamin deficiencies, so I'm hoping the MRI reveals something, just not something rather scary.

I'm also hoping there are no shards of ferrous metal embedded in my body that I am unaware of, nor that I have a hitherto unrealised problem with claustrophobia; lying in a giant magnet for an hour can aggravate both those things.

And so, like my tools and toys, I need some manner of maintenance. I just wish that going in for a service was as easy for me as it is for them.

wiffle ball and the point of contact

We played wiffle ball over on West Hill Place, just off of Charles Street, by the T-station. Drivers would use it as a shortcut to get to Storrow Drive, even though they weren't supposed to. It interrupted the game. We'd have to move the traffic cones or undo the chain to let them through. There'd be dirty looks shot and much huffing and puffing, but the drivers didn't care. We were just kids playing wiffle ball. West Hill Place was essentially a circle. Car bumpers played the role of bases and a convenient manhole served as the pitcher's mound. You got a homer if you hit it fair over a second floor window. We weren't exactly power hitters - we had more luck scoring runs by grounding the ball under parked cars. On the rare days there were no cars, there weren't a lot of runs scored.

There were usually only three or four of us playing and so we had to adapt the rules a tad. You could throw the runner out by hitting him with the ball. It was a dangerous strategy as a miss would almost always result in a run scoring. We also always underestimated just how much that little white plastic ball stung when it slapped against the flesh. Shrieks of pain resulted in derision, so you had to grimace, bear it, and take your place out in the 'field', fiercely rubbing the point of impact and wincing.

Contact was sublime. It always is, whether it's a proper ball against a wooden bat or plastic on plastic, there are few better feelings than the shudder of a bat when it hits the ball, that split second of unity and ultimate harmony that comes when the ball's trajectory reverses and it becomes part of the bat's motion, exploding forward with a crack that staggers the forearms. The hitter becomes a motor; an engine generating propulsion. The balls sails and as it does an incredible sense of forward motion flows through you. There's no time to appreciate it; you have to run and maybe, if you reach base safely, you smile and clap your hands together hoping to feel again the moment of contact.

I'm writing a new book. I can't really say much about it yet, but it's not fiction. It's not about baseball or wiffle ball either. But it's new. Instead of sifting through countless pages in the big purple binder, buried in words I've already written, I've got blank sheets staring back at me, waiting to be filled. Some writers fear blank pages, but not me. For me it's a thousand points of contact, hit after hit, as each page fills so goes the forward motion and as I type I feel the shudder in my forearms and so it flows.

Hopefully.

 

 

the toy grabber

The words filled my heart with a mix of despair and dread. I'd look through my toys, through Star Wars figures and Legos, squirt guns and Matchbox cars to no avail. Defeated, I went to my mom.

'Mom, I can't find my Boba Fett.'

'Where did you leave it?'

'I dunno - the floor somewhere? I can't find it anywhere!'

'The floor? Oh dear, I guess the Toy Grabber got it.'

The Toy Grabber. My nemesis. A mythical beast that, in my mind, looked like a cross between a large rat and a Jawa. Its mission was singular. Any toy not put away properly became its property. It struck swiftly and with little warning; toys left in communal areas of our apartment, especially the floor of the hall, disappeared the fastest. I never saw it. My room tended to be sanctuary, though sometimes, if it got really messy, The Toy Grabber broke the truce and something special would disappear. Something like a Millenium Falcon. Anguish and resentment followed; dejected, I would tidy what toys that remained and sulk. Or I would throw a belligerent-brat of a tantrum. Often it was a mixture of the two.

I begged, pleaded, bargained and bellowed for the swift return of my toys to little avail. The Toy Grabber didn't work that way. It heard no pleas and felt no compassion. I imagined it stood atop a mountain of neglected toys, not just mine but all of the neglected toys in the world, ignoring the chorus of calls for their return.

Weeks, sometimes months would pass until prodigal toys reappeared. By then I had forgotten they were missing, perhaps that I ever owned them at all. It was almost like getting new toys.

It was only after about a year that I realised that my mom was The Toy Grabber. It made little difference. Its stoicism remained. Only now I knew that there was no mythical mountain of missing toys; now I knew that the missing toys were hidden somewhere. And so my pleading became merely a token gesture, and my efforts shifted to discovering my mother's hiding place. I searched everywhere: closets, cupboards, under beds, behind couches, high and low. I remember one large, silver plastic bag - I think it was from a shoe shop - that I became convinced was The Toy Grabber stash. It lay at the bottom of my parents' closet. It had those hard plastic handles that could be snapped shut. It was always snapped shut.

I never mustered the guts to open it. Eventually, I learned to pick my toys up after myself and The Toy Grabber faded with the rest of my childhood.

There's a small wooden cigar box that sits on the floor to the right of my bed. It's a Cohiba box. It used to hold Siglo I's. Now it holds countless bits and pieces: green stems from Poppy Appeal poppies, hair ties, short pieces of plastic tubing, zip ties, wine foil, paperclips, fake mice and many more. They're the cat's toys. If he plays with them on my bed while I'm trying to sleep, they get confiscated. They get put in the cigar box.

They get put in The Toy Grabber.

ice packs and jimmy buffett lyrics

It's sunny today, in spite of the big rain clouds. There's an occasional shower, but it doesn't last. The breeze is a mere wheeze compared to the gales that have hit of late.

With these things in mind, I stretched out this afternoon and went for a run. Town seemed reasonably quiet. There was the odd dog-walker on East Sands and a bit of traffic here and there, but not all that many folks. I was able to cross the Old Course without yielding to a drive from the first hole or a final whack to the eighteenth. My pace felt good and the sun felt better as I ran behind the dunes, along the grass down to the end of West Sands. I passed some folks with tricycles attached to sails folding their kit onto the back of a trailer. I imagined the mildness of the breeze annoyed them as much as it pleased me. They were young, brightly attired and wearing scarlet safety helmets.

By the time I reached the last flag on the beach and turned back towards home my mind set itself on my writing, turning over issues of prose and plot as my legs retraced my steps. It's one of the few times I can ponder my words while listening to lyrics by someone else. In this case it was the Beastie Boys, Public Enemy and Blink 182: good running tunes. Turning from the entrance to the beach to follow the Bruce Embankment, my mind had drifted to nothing in particular. The blue of the sea, the brightness of the sky, the enormity of the odd rain cloud. I dodged the odd pedestrian and wheezed a 'thank you' or 'cheers' if they took evasive action.

And then I got to the car park and something at the bottom of my calf popped. I ran with a limp for a few more steps and it got worse, so I stopped. I stretched it out as best I could for about a minute. I jogged lightly for another few steps and it seemed better. Everything else felt brilliant - runner's high, six and a bit miles in, muscles, lungs, all of it good. I stretched again. I could see the restaurant I used to work at, my old boss, my old colleagues and a wine rep I knew sitting at the window, right along my route (which, at that point, was all uphill).

I ran again, waved at my audience as I puffed out my chest and tried to look somewhat fitter than I am. At the top of the hill I walked for another fifty yards before once again attempting a light trot. That was the last straw. I don't run with a phone; if I did, I would have phoned someone.

I hobbled the last two-thirds of a mile home, petrified that I'd torn the most notorious of tendons. My only consolation was that there wasn't any pain to speak of, just the threat of it. I also took grim comfort in the thought that if I had torn my tendon, even hobbling would have been too much.

Now there's an ice pack under my calf and achilles, I'm staring out the window at the glorious afternoon and Jimmy Buffett's 'Growing Older But Not Up' is running through my head:

Crack went my leg, 
like the shell of an egg, 
someone call a decent physician

...

Though my mind is quite flexible,
These brittle bones don't bend.

It wasn't a crack at least, it was a pop.

the rattling of a wagon

I can't remember which Christmas or birthday it was, or even if it was one of them at all. In any case, one year I wound up with a red Radio Flyer wagon. I don't think it excited me at the time. My reaction was probably, 'it's ok, I guess' or something similar. It grew on me, though. It wasn't a toy, it was a tool for childhood; as seminal in its own way as my first bike. Not to say I didn't use it as a toy, of course I did. My mom and her hardwood floors were all too aware of my propensity to use it as such. She never regretted giving it to me though; it was too useful. It was the kid's version of having a station wagon. All of the sudden a trip to the park could be undertaken fully equipped with all manner of cumbersome sporting equipment, picnic, toy and even extra clothing. Just pile it in the Radio Flyer and away we went. It made a racket on the brick sidewalks of Beacon Hill, trumpeting our youthful parade. My mother would use it from time to time as well, when she didn't want to take the car. It served to link my boyhood to that of Calvin, from Bill Watterson's Calvin & Hobbes. I never quite managed to find a trail quite as idyllic as the scenes set in the comic, but my mind certainly wandered as I sat in it and gripped the handle careening through imagined wilderness. It was frequently a mining cart from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It leapt many a magma pool in its day.

I dragged it behind me when I walked to the Boston Common for little league games. My bat and glove joined the rattle of the wheels along the brick, bringing their own rhythm. Sometimes there'd be a playmate cooler full of juice and sandwiches. I have no bad memories of those games. Time has polished them into unblemished gems of childhood. Wearing a batter's helmet that would always look too big and trying, at the age of 11, to stare down the opposing pitcher. Lying in the warm spring grass before warming up, tossing the ball up gently and catching it again. We talked about Boggs and Clemens and Oil Can and Greenwell and '86. We all wanted to play for the Red Sox when we grew up, right after being James Bond, Indiana Jones and Luke Skywalker. Then we'd play and sometimes we'd win and sometimes we'd lose. Losses stung and wins overjoyed.

Then, in the golden late afternoon, covered in dust and dirt, I would load up the wagon and drag it home, firing questions at my mom, 'did you see that double I hit?', 'did you see that throw?' I never waited for an answer. Breathless, I'd ask another and another until we got home.

These memories come back stronger in the depth of Scottish winter. The golden afternoons, when they're not grey, come far earlier in the day. My bright red Radio Flyer's been replaced by a beat up silver Renault.

There's still a rattle, but it's less endearing.

still not used to writing the date

I scratch my stubble and look at the number that comes before January and it takes a double take to comprehend. As I start writing this, it's the 17th. It may be the 18th when I finish. Or, knowing me, it could be March. In any case, it doesn't feel like we should be in the second half of this month, not yet at least. I need to concentrate to write '2011' instead of any other year. I wrote '2002' the other day. Where the intervening 9 years went is anyone's guess.

It seems like New Years was yesterday, or perhaps the day before. I've no idea where the last two weeks have disappeared to, though I'm quite certain they're not coming back.

Meanwhile, 2010 fades into the mist of the distant past. The memories aren't gone - they just seem further removed than they should.

It's strange, because I haven't moved in a year. In spite of travel, new people and new places, I've gone nowhere. That's something quite difficult to face and to accept, but it is what it is, and within that I need to find a new gear, preferably a forward one. Reverse and neutral are worn down.

It shouldn't surprise me that the correct year confounds me - it could be any of the last nine and little would be different.

Probably time that changed.

older and wiser?

Sister Mary Andrew stormed out: a harbinger of the apocalypse. The anger in those eyes held no Christian charity or turning of the other cheek. As I plucked a clump of grass from behind my ear she descended the short three steps from the front entrance of the school down to the lawn. Her finger waved at us from her outstretched arm, accusing.

She was not a slight woman. She was built like a linebacker. She sounded a bit like a linebacker as well; drawn out suburban Massachusetts drawl with an authoritative depth. Sister Mary Andrew could make the word 'no' last for seconds.

She was not in habit. She wore a grey wool suit and white blouse, bullet proof opaque tights and black brogues. I think she wore that every day. I wonder if her closet held a series of identical wool suits, labeled with their respective day: her cupboard a collection of cloned blouses. Her habit, no doubt, would be kept separate. I never saw any of the nuns that taught me in their habits. I'm not sure I would have recognised them.

My hands stopped scraping the grass from my hair as I noticed the approaching juggernaut, my principal. I slapped Stevie Delicata's shoulder and pointed towards the path where Sister Mary Andrew marched towards us. She leaned forward slightly, as though her legs couldn't match the speed of her wrath. The delirium of the previous minutes evaporated as Zach, the third of us, muttered the only thing that came to mind.

'Oh shit.'

None of us could say anything else.

Not much more than a minute before, the fire alarm sounded throughout the school. The odd fire drill never really meant much to us. We were only 9, maybe 10. We lined up in two lines in front of sister-something-or-other (I think Sister Mary-Ellen that year, because I think I was in 4th grade) or miss-what's-her-name and once we stood in two orderly lines, we'd be led outside to our meeting point. If anything, it was 5 or 10 minutes of not being in class. If you had a tendency to misbehave, as I did, it could be up to 20.

That day was different. I don't know how or why, but the ear-stinging shriek of that alarm ignited some manner of delinquent telepathy. Stevie, Zach and I weren't allowed to sit next to each other. Some earlier shenanigans led to us not even being allowed to look at each other that day. Nothing was planned because we didn't plan anything. We never planned anything. It just seemed to happen. Trips to the principal's office would ensue. Either that or being forced to stand out in the hall. Or, and this was the worst, being sent to the grade below's classroom. I would simply run and hide in the boy's room whenever that happened. That would undoubtedly lead back to the principal's office.

Who stood up first? Was it Zach? Always the craziest, the least in control. Was it Stevie? Was it me? It may well have been me. Maybe we all stood up at once, synchronised by that delinquent telepathy.

We screamed mock panic, hollering to be heard above the din of the alarm itself. Out the classroom door before the teacher could stop us. We tumbled and bounced through the hallway, banging on all the other classroom doors, lunatic klaxons shrieking 'FIRE!' and howling as though we burned. We leapt down the stairs two and three at a time and continued through the ground floor hall, topsiders squeaking along the linoleum grade school floor tiles. This was the home of first, second and third grade. Zach started imitating the wail of the alarm. Or maybe it was a fire truck.

Out the front door we flew, hoarse with our roars, and jumped arms and heads first out on to the lawn. Our chant changed from 'FIRE!' to 'STOP, DROP & ROLL!' - instructions on what to do should you happen to catch fire. I think Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck delivered the message. We stopped, dropped and rolled; somersaulting and writhing along the grass, extinguishing the non-existent flames and covering our chinos (no jeans allowed) and striped shirts (were there kids' shirts in the eighties that didn't have thin, horizontal, multicoloured stripes?) in grass stains.

None of us were strangers to her wrath. But as she towered above us, purple-faced and speechless with rage, it dawned on us just how stupidly we behaved. I'd never seen her that angry. Our mania drained away, siphoned by the apoplectic Sister staring down at us. I looked towards the school and there were no classes lining up to be counted. The alarm had fallen silent. We gasped and grasped for breath, trying to look penitent. In the quiet of it all, in the soft Spring afternoon, I tried desperately not to giggle. I bit my tongue and looked down at the grass, avoiding Stevie and Zach's eyes.

She shook her finger at us from the shoulder, jabbing, still unable to speak.

And I giggled. Then Stevie. Then Zach.

She didn't speak. She roared.

I don't remember what the punishment was. I don't remember how long my parents had to speak with Sister Mary Andrew or my homeroom teacher. I guess I was grounded. That's what tended to happen. Stevie and Zach probably were too.

As I write this my tongue probes the gap where a wisdom tooth used to be, and I think about growing up. It's a fond memory to me. I cling to episodes like this in times of necessity, times of conformity, times where I do what I have to do, rather than what I want to do. It's a comfort. Now, of course, with friends who teach at all levels, I understand the other side. I understand just how much they must have loathed our behaviour. How they must have breathed a sigh of relief when a day went by without incident. I sympathise with teachers who have students anywhere near as problematic as I was.

My tongue rubs that spot and I remember 23 years ago and I realise I wouldn't take any of it back. I'd still scream down that hallway, bang on doors and leap out onto the lawn, breathless and maniacal.

And when the nun caught me, I'd try not to giggle.

And fail.