As I look back on it, it all almost seems like a convergence
of near coincidences – although, still, all of it can be easily explained away. Things
happen at the same time all of the time. It doesn’t mean that the coincidences
signify anything.
But it was a windy day.
I was working at my study desk in my study. It was a warm
and windy day for November, but it looked a little bit like March from the
inside. Except that it was this year’s leaves blowing across my back yard. And
swirling. Currents and eddies of leaves. Like a river of leaves. Or maybe a
freshet. On top of the tall cane stalks that were reaching up towards the clear
sky, the cane seed heads were waving back and forth with every gust of wind. I
didn’t think that they were waving at me.
It was just a windy day.
And then I noticed the aluminum gulls on my windmobile -
aluminum flashing from the hardware store that I had cut with a metal shears
and bent into something like five small seagulls and delicately balanced on
lengths of music wire. The gulls were catching wind. I call the windmobile, ‘5-gull,’
for something to call it. It was a wind mobile and it was flashing in the
sunlight.
Now, I did think something of the slight coincidences
apparently gusting about, but I was not really thinking all that much about
anything at the time. I might have been about to catch something not quite
unimaginable out of the corner of my mind. I got up and went out into the yard
to take a picture. It was warm enough for March - and of course, it can sometimes
be warm in February - but it still mostly felt more like November to me. But
warm. I didn’t bother to check the calendar on the refrigerator again and I
didn’t bother with a jacket.
I crouched down on the lawn to try to take a photo of the
flashing gulls careening and swooping all over the place in a very, very late
March wind or one that was just a little bit too warm and early for
Thanksgiving.
It was a windy day.
I should have mentioned earlier that I had been listening to
a song on my wireless headphones. I was listening for the song that I couldn’t
quite remember. I might have been trying to remember the lyrics. Or perhaps it
was just the tune I was trying to catch one more time.
These are the days of
miracles and wonders. But those are the lyrics from a Paul Simon song that
I wasn’t listening to that afternoon at all. Not those lyrics. But I have sometimes
wondered what a miracle would look like. And would a March wind in November
even be enough for a coincidence? I doubt it.
And then, the next song in the algorithmic queue began
playing in my headphones.
The first time ever I
saw your face… began playing in my headphones. I was sure that it was
Roberta Flack. I can’t remember when I heard her voice for the first time. And
now I was hearing it again.
It was a windy day.
I switched the switch on my camera device over to ‘video’ and
I just listened to Roberta Flack as I crouched
and watched the gulls flashing in whatever wind was now blowing my way.
Blowing in the wind, as it were. How many
roads … ?
It was hardly a miracle. These things can be explained. Things happen. And those are just lyrics
from another song that I hadn’t been thinking of just then. And now it is now
and I’m writing things down. I have just
happened to listen to Dawes from time
to time. All of this was neither here nor there at the time. And yet things were
unmistakably happening. Gusting. It might have been November. It was in the
afternoon. I was beginning to doubt my doubts.
It was a windy day.
Well, I certainly wasn’t going to go back to my computer keyboard
after listening to Roberta Flack singing - even if she wasn’t singing to me. The
lyrics had turned to pretty intimate stuff and I hardly knew her all that well,
besides. Well, I really only knew her voice. And besides that, the coffee shop I
often stopped at for iced tea closed in the middle of the afternoon on Monday
afternoons. I could definitely use a glass of iced tea. Some things are clear.
But not iced tea. But what about ice in November?
Never mind the words cartwheeling in the wind. Besides all that
other stuff and nonsense, I have a rule. Sort of a rule. It’s more of a saying
really, hardly enough to even be a common expression. But the words might at
least sound vaguely familiar: A smile a day is better than five birds on a wire.
Not to mention keeping the doctor away. Healthy, impoverished and foolish. And
if you have your health …
Well, as I said, it was a windy day.
Now it is just a very simple fact that my father was a
doctor for much of his adult life. And even if oranges are not apples, at this
point in my life, I suspect that I could probably play my dad in a made for TV
movie. I have his face. At least his nose. There is some resemblance. But his
life was better than the movie that won’t ever be made could ever be. But still
the Kodachrome gave us the nice bright
colors, as the old song goes. Not
that old. But Kodachrome rarely rendered blue sky as true sky blue.
And so the cane growing in my back yard, hard and factual, came
from my dad years ago. The old home place. And he’s now long gone, not so many years
ago. But the cane itself surely signifies nothing. The cane is only waving in
the wind. And I am only the teller of this tale. I could never be Shakespeare –
nor wanted to be or have been. I had never ever even been born all those years
ago.
But what signifies? And what if Macbeth was mistaken about
the idiot’s told tale? But then the sounds and fury of the day in my questioning
were barely negligible. And some sense I am not making. Clearly.
It was a windy day.
I got one of the bicycles off the back porch. One of them
has a bell and the other one doesn’t. I took one of them. The bell surely
signifies little of consequence unless I ring it. And even then. I put on a
light dark evergreen windbreaker mostly for show. The wild wind would not be
broken by me. But what of my mind or my heart?
It was quite warm - a curious wind - as I have already said - for a late
mid-afternoon in November.
When I got to the coffee shop, two baristas, who I happen to
know only just a little, smiled at me. Along with the iced tea, I was good to
go, but I stayed for a while, maybe longer.
Then one barista left to take photos by the lake with
another barista – she was another young woman whose smile I could easily recall
in a heartbeat, so long as I still have one. But I expect that the rest of her
will eventually fade in my memory like a Cheshire cat. I think that she wore
her hair in braided pigtails one day – or twice. I hadn’t been counting then - and
then, again, I couldn’t recall the first time ever I saw her face. But it
wasn’t ever going to be the whole Roberta Flack thing with her anyway. But there
was something almost magical in the moment - or twice. In her face. And there
must have been a first time.
It was windy day.
Years ago, another barista had started working at the coffee
shop and I didn’t realize that I had seen her miming out on a street corner
before she had taken the barista job at Aimee’s. And then I thought that I might
actually recall the first time ever I saw her face because I had written something
about it. But now looking back, I think I might just have written another bit
of writing about some other time. Maybe I just can’t find what I thought I
remembered. There are so very many words and pages and books. There might have
been something about a skirt that was blowing in the breeze on a long ago
afternoon. Who can remember what month?
But this is all beginning to seem like the strangest thing.
Or perhaps it’s just a little odd. Perhaps it is all part of a grand illusion that
time plays on idiots or fools - mere mortals - on windy afternoons. Diversions
are everywhere blowing hither and yon and one leaf looks like another and no
one can look closely enough at all of them. And then you pick a leaf out of the
pile and it somehow looks just like the one you kept in a book. But then you
can’t remember the book and you can’t remember the first time you ever saw her
face. Or anyone’s face. Any face.
It might have been a windy day. The first time ever I saw
her face. And now, whose?
It seems to me as if it would be helpful to recall the first
time I saw something so that when the thing happened again I might understand
why I feel the way that I do. Not that I understand what I was feeling that
afternoon or any other afternoon in November or March.
A flock of pigeons were flying in the blue sky, their wings
catching the sunlight as if the sun was the sky and the air was the wind, gusting
and swirling, all of it all swooping and careening together as they circled and turned over above and over and over and again,
the one and two story buildings stone-still across the windswept way. But it
might as well have been just another day. And maybe it was. If only I could pay
better attention. But there is too much of everything. And how do I know what to
pay attention to?
It was a windy day.
The barista that left by the front door might have been
wearing a black jacket. Her hair was dark with hints of red - and smooth. I
want to say that her eyes were dusky, but more and more, eyes seem to be more
illusion than things.
I think that I might have been watching the leaves blowing
along the sidewalk. Or I might have been just looking at her shoes. I’m pretty
sure that I saw other young women walking along the sidewalk. They must have
been wearing shoes, but I don’t think I ever noticed their shoes, either. I
think I saw one woman going and coming. But only because I noticed her going
first. She wore shiny black leggings.
I imagine that baristas are like leaves, coming and going –
mostly going - and then you realize that you can hardly remember how they wore
their hair. And not that it matters. But if at least I could have something to
remember their many smiles by. I have at least noticed that often their smile
is not primarily in their lips, although a corner might give something away.
But you can’t press a smile in a book. And
frankly, I do think that their eyes are more illusion than iced tea. And even
iced tea disappears when you drink it. I suppose that I might indeed believe in
true magic in the moment – or twice. But I have a hunch that I should not look
for more explanations. I just might find one. And an explanation by itself signifies
nothing.
It was a windy day.
It was past time for me to go. The sunlight on the buildings
across the street was being swallowed by the blocks of shadows coming up from
the sidewalk. And I had only leftover ice in my glass. I had managed to slip in
a dumb joke when the barista wearing a T-shirt wasn’t looking. The T-shirt might
have been dark blue with red lettering. Or maybe sky blue lettering. I think I
noticed some lettering on the back of the T-shirt. I’m not sure about the colors.
Her hair was thick and curly.
I noticed passing clouds in the sky as I looked out of the
window. And then I wished I had a picture of the look on the barista’s face
when she caught my dumb joke out of the air before it fell onto the floor.
Leaves swirled on the sidewalk. And then they swirled again. More leaves
swirled. I decided to try to pay better attention before losing the whole day.
It was – after all - a windy day.
I left through the same door that the barista with the dusky
eyes had so recently left, but I had given her a head start and then I went left
and she had turned right. She was heading for the lake and I rode my bicycle in
the general direction of the river. Not just for reassurance, but for the
colors. And the rollicking ripples. But still I found that I was arriving at
intersections and turning the corners nearly by chance.
Then I noticed a woman, younger than me, in a bright red
skirt. But at sixty-one, I certainly wasn’t surprised by that. Though sometimes
I am startled to realize that I am already sixty-one. Younger or older than
Shakespeare, depending on how you count the ellipses around the sun.
The one near and far sun burning in a solar wind without
discernable expression - something like a face over my left shoulder – then the
right one.
Nevertheless, the
younger woman was wearing a red skirt that came nearly down to her knees. And
she wore black stockings and short black boots. Her heels were not too tall and
not too short. She might have been wearing a black jacket, but I guess that I wasn’t
really paying that close attention at that point. I only noticed her because
she was crouching down on the sidewalk taking a photo near the corner where I
was turning – and she was wearing a bright red skirt.
It was a windy day.
And then, not long after, I was riding up on the levee away
from the setting sun. There might have been some clouds but I remember seeing
blue sky. I noticed some yellow cottonwood leaves hanging onto the ends of the
bare cottonwood tree branches. I could see the river reflecting the sky through
the trees. Reassuringly. I only noticed the leaves because they were few.
It was a windy day.
And then I noticed two young women, running towards me side
by side. One was wearing shorts. Her legs were smooth and bare. The other was
wearing black leggings. Her legs were not too long or too short. The young
woman’s legs were covered to the ankles in black clingy leggings. I only saw
their faces for an instant and then the levee trail curved in front of me. I
passed them once again, after I had turned around in a half-circle at 8th
Street and then I headed back into the face of the sun. I only noticed the
young women because they were running together and one was bare legged and the
other wore leggings.
It was a windy day.
As I was heading towards home, I noticed the side of a
house. The house was built with painted brick all colored in one of the orangish
colors of fall. The house was two stories tall – just about right. There were
leaves all around on the ground. The house might have been a dusky orange. The
windows reflected the sky. I stopped and crouched down to take a picture. I
noticed the house because it was made all of dusky orange painted brick.
It was a windy day.
As I neared home, I noticed a bald man in a white van. He was
not too old and not too young.
He was looking the other way. I was about to turn in front
of him as he was about to turn in front of me. Then he saw me and we smiled at
each other through his open window as I rode on by. It was November. I didn’t
use my bell. I only noticed him because he was looking away.
It was a windy day.
And then, after all of that and more, when I finally got
home, I parked my bicycle with the silent bell on the porch and I opened the
window on my laptop. And yes! Still I found that I was completely surprised to
see the two young women, the one with the dusky eyes and the one with the
pigtails - but the pigtails had been yet another time. They were taking a picture of themselves and
posting it on Facebook. They were smiling at me through the screen. But maybe
they weren’t smiling at me this time after all. But I’m sure that this never
happened to Shakespeare. But that’s not the point.
Imagine! Two young women whose faces I had ever - but not forever
- seen sometime before, young women who had handed me an iced tea or something
once or twice – who can account for everything? –The faces of two baristas who just
happened to be taking their picture on a November afternoon by the lake were there
on a screen in front of my face. What a coincidence! Of course, it could all be
explained. Mostly. I suppose. The how of it might indeed have a few holes left where
no one had been paying close enough attention to see just what had happened - or
what color their eyes were.
But why were they where they were in the first place? Why
those two? Why there? And why is anyone anywhere in the first place? The very
first place? And how else could you ever remember them if you only ever saw
them in the second place? And just what did Roberta Flack see the first time
ever she saw his face?
It was a windy day.
I think of myself as fortunate man. But it helps if I pay
attention. Without true magic, it’s all just a trick. A stacked deck. The
rabbit was always in the hat. A false compartment. There was a trapdoor under
the carpet through which a curvaceous woman wearing glittering sparkles appeared
to disappear. I’m not really trying to figure it all out anymore. Things
happen. At this stage in life, I would rather try – if only I might - to see
the magic the first time – if it is there. It might be. Magic. And then every
time thereafter.
It was a windy day.
One of the young women was wearing dark lipstick and the
other was not. She with the dusky eyes might have had a silver ring through her
lip. I know that they both were smiling with their eyes into the camera lens. The
bare trees behind them grew out of a tilted earth. The sky was the same as the
sky I had seen all over town all afternoon. I noticed them because they had
smiled at me the first time. It might have been the first time ever I saw their
faces.
I could not remember when.
It was a windy day.
Some things just seem so unlikely to me when I look back on
what I hadn’t imagined when I woke up. And then I have gotten out of bed in the
morning and then the day all just gusts on ahead of me and things happens the
way things happen. It was only a windy day after all. Women wear red skirts and
men are looking the other way all of the time. And why shouldn’t only a few
leaves hang on tightly in November?
And then, once more – or twice - beyond the screen in my
study, the two young woman still laughed in their still, silent, sepia tones into my
imagination. And then I looked up and I noticed that the sun was going down beyond
my own backyard yet again. Branches bare over the garage, the tall cane leaning
against and rising above the back fence, growing darker in silhouette, the five
aluminum gulls balancing at the ends of lengths of music wire. Twilight. I only
noticed the sunset because of the sun-bright sunset colors and the cloudy
blue-gray clouds. It may have been the first time ever I saw the face of the
sky quite like that moment. But surely not the first time ever.
The wind was nearly still.
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