it is what it is because of what it was (535 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.63 on 12 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by <Art> (View user info) at 2007-09-20 16:11:32 EDT
Today after a long day at the institution (learning, not mental), I decided to take a drive to the local Barnes and Noble; ahead of me laid miles of stationary motors, blinking lights, and the convulsive verbal abuse that comes standard with each Philadelphia license plate.
I soon accepted that my efforts were clearly impeded due to the constricted flow of traffic. I decided that my purchase could wait for another day, as I pulled in to a local shopping center in order to redirect myself towards my couch and refrigerator. I looked to the signs at the intersection and realized I was parked in the shopping plaza across the street my old neighborhood.
The environment was easy enough recognize, yet every minute familiarity was now overshadowed by drastic change. The Eckerd had become a Wine and Spirits Shop, and the strip mall a Home Depot.
With the screeching halt of my brakes and my initial intention, I found myself being drawn to nearby monuments, moments which registered in my mind upon sight, such as the hill where I sliced my face up like a Thanksgiving turkey when I was nine by riding my bike in to a pile of thorns at the bottom.
My bike didn't quite make it, however.
After pulling myself through the pain, I struggled, muscling my bike from the grip of the thorn bush; I took what seemed to be the only option at the time and drove it home, dripping a trail of blood behind me, you know... in case the ambulance wanted to find me.
Onlookers gawked as I glided by them, still dragging behind me some insubordinate plant matter, holding my lacerated lip to my face with my left hand , and steering the bike handle, sticky with dry blood on my right hand, leaving behind red prints. As soon as I got home, my friend whom I was supposed to meet at the parking lot was at my house. He got the idea that I couldn't play, and moments later I was in the E.R.
There is now a fence where that hill used to be.
As I drove up that road I felt as if the environment had been warped by a fun house mirror. Everything was out of proportion, from the massive hill I went sledding on suddenly reduced to the size of a wheelchair access ramp, to the brief drive up to the end of the road, which used to continue on for miles.
My house was different, too. The massive oak tree that once stretched to my third floor window was nonexistent; instead a patch of long-stalked red flowers flourished, corrupting the landscape.
I engaged my surroundings, absorbing the scenery, remembering kissing my first girl in my backyard, seated on a picnic blanket beneath the cherry trees.
I then recalled throwing a brick at her a year later while we were playing "Power Rangers".
Perhaps it's not just the fact that I lived there for eight years, but the fact that it was THOSE eight years, of formative development and experience.
I am nothing of what I was those ten years ago; all that remains are an archive of fleeting memories that come and go at their own discretion; actions without words; indefinite meaning.
I thought I understood myself, but always find more questions of uncertainty than solace in concrete idealism. We are always standing on the shoulders of prior experiences; we are always what we are because of what we were.
User Reviews
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-09-21 15:11:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Submitted by ChaosJester (user info) at 2007-09-21 02:57:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Could use a bit of a re-write, but that's already been mentioned.
...
The place where I spent the first 18 years of my life is now a deserted, vacant lot.
How's that for change?
Submitted by steph (user info) at 2007-09-21 00:41:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I like this.
Submitted by beeltea (user info) at 2007-09-20 17:56:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
hmm... okayish... sometimes the language seems forced, could probably use a revision... that's just me.
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2007-09-20 17:33:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I remember planting saplings at my old house, in 1975.
Those trees are fuckin big now...
Submitted by Crystle (user info) at 2007-09-20 17:32:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
this was good, but simplify your vocabulary.
it would help evoke a more nostalgic feel.
Submitted by Axolotl (user info) at 2007-09-20 17:28:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
liked this a lot
I had a similar going-down-a-hill-on-a-bike experience. My little bro dared me to do it, and I broke my nose and wrist, and lacerated my face on a pile of gravel.
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2007-09-20 17:13:47 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by i_can_get_you_a_toe (user info) at 2007-09-20 17:10:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
nice.
and never ever think it's a good idea to take drugs on a weekday night when you have work the next morning.
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Depends on the drug.
Submitted by i_can_get_you_a_toe (user info) at 2007-09-20 17:10:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
nice.
and never ever think it's a good idea to take drugs on a weekday night when you have work the next morning.
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2007-09-20 16:26:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2007-09-20 16:15:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by DirtyHarry (user info) at 2007-09-20 16:13:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I remember playing Power Rangers