there was a mercifully brief two week period in high school when suspenders made a comeback. except you couldn't actually wear them over your shoulders. you had to let them hang coolly by your waist. which meant you also had to wear a belt to keep your pants up. we never understood why the old men down at the elks lodge would laugh at us when we strolled by with the local senior picture photographer striking irretrievable poses against a backdrop screen with the inexplicable salmon colored circle. if you could draw your life along a straight line on graph paper, then set the image next to a map of the universe, then you might be under the impression that you occupy the exact same point in time with the fake smile staring back at you from 1989.
i love this complete and utterly senseless approach to life, as though the decisions you make may not haunt you for eternity, because perhaps forever was not guaranteed in the legal sense, but in the commercial, not-really-true-but-please-buy-our-product sense. I'm down to my last two installments, you know. likewise, conversations with the people from our past represent circles with no refunds, but you can bring your faulty purchase back for in-store credit. take your flying shoes down aisle 3, pick up some marathon bars.
hopefully, one day, one of my friends will walk into my office, maybe when i'm filling out a travel reimbursement form or drafting a memo on mailroom procedures or trying to remember my department account code, and she will shut the door behind her, and she will hang her blouse over the motion sensor that controls how much light i am allowed, and she will kneel next to my chair, put her head in my lap and start crying, asking, 'why do we continue like this? how have we become trapped within these expectations? i am 17 and following a strange man as he leads me through the park, ordering me into unnatural poses and commanding i smile at the very goddamned moment i feel unlike baring my teeth except in fury. they are dressing me in funny clothes and now i am five years old throwing a tantrum, not because i am angry, but because i do not possess the words to express my frustration, and before we got our first thesaurus we had anger, and whenever you don't know a word, a suitable substitute was your tiny fist striking the desk.' and i will lift her chin and say, 'how can you have turned out so wicked, being as how i raised you by my very hands?' and if she laughs, it will be because we were both scolded this way, dropped into such tired care.
i will kiss her so deeply then that we will pull the power strips from the wall, cross the street where there is a garry oak savanna overlooking a salmon bearing wetland, and for an afternoon the commuters will sound like bison, the salal will tickle like cabin flames, if we love what we see, we will be unafraid to say it, and the contrails will frighten us, the angry eyebrows of a disapproving god. my god, it will be like old times, even until the day sets and we return to our desks to complete our travel authorizations. we will have had at least this day, and never doubt that it might even happen again. one day, when you think it will not happen, we will remember, that it will, that someone you understand will walk right up to you in the middle of a workday, will come right up to you, will actually reach out and my god lift your hand, actually touch you breaking any barrier of impropriety, lift your fingers, your incredulous eyes, and before you have time to reach for your thesaurus to give voice to the word for which you are suddenly searching, lead you out into a very old sun, glaze your eyes with impossibility. my god.
10 comments:
It must be over-the-moon freakin' fabulous to have High School photos decent enough to be shown to the entire internet.
I wouldn't know.
My high school photos could never be shown to the general public without causing rioting in the streets as people rallied to hunt down and kill the abomination to man and nature that was captured in MY senior photos.
Rugby shirt and acid washed gray jeans.... That takes me back... I hate you
In 1989, I was 7. I didn't have any suspenders. I did have a rainbow belt with a heart-shaped buckle, though.
I like the part where she takes off her blouse.
I need to use (steal) the contrails simile, insinuate that into a conversation somehow, although maybe the god is not disapproving.
dave, i have to admit, and i do so with regret, that my hs photos are not cringe worthy because people like you better when you have been publically humiliated, and yes, they might hunt you down and kill you, but really, they would be laughing the entire time. AND THAT MUST MEAN SOMETHING, TOO
srh, if only you could see my sockless imitation Dexter dockshoes, your conversion to the dark side would be complete.
jennie! me too! ahem.
mouse, that was indeed the best part.
julie, you may steal anything you find here. what are these 'conversations' of which you speak? is that like IM?
I attended a boarding school for HS. Out on the commons, out of boardom we used to set up photos for laughs without cameras, pretending to be models for cheesey catalogues with their faux-action shots and glazed smiles. One afternoon the yearbook photographer took advantage, and honestly? Those photos are probably my favorite ones from all of my high school years. Waaaaaaay better than any senior portrait because, at least these were supposed to be funny.
Wow, did I really spell "boredom" like that? Gah. I need a nap.
Not being a blogger, or much of a commenter, I must resort to the old ways. And, I'm old.
um, ... the last two paragraphs ... I really really liked. my god.
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