Tuesday, December 15, 2009

...both we and our words were overproduced


There are windows on all sides of the manor allowing her to perch and watch for days...months...maybe even years. She doesn't know yet, she hasn't been there long enough to find out.


She's watched the first snow of the year blanket the woods that her kitchen gazes upon in such a way that she's reminded of third grade and Laura Ingalls Wilder's little house in the big woods.


She's watched the cat that she nearly crashed her car on her way to work dodging get run over. By a truck that she was certain never drove faster than 5 miles per hour down her street. On the one day they were in a hurry.


She's watched a crazed kid, no more than 20, run laps around his dorm building at Rhode Island College screaming "Fuck you RIC!" repeatedly, all the while waving a paper above his head.


She's watched the moment that a father lets go of his child's bicycle seat, still telling the little girl that he is holding on when he is not. And the transition from terror to joy when the little girl realizes she is riding all on her own.


She's watched a date get eagerly out of his car and walk to her door.


She's watched someone she didn't want to see leave get into their car and not look back.



She tends to jot these things down as they happen. She doesn't want to forget why she left her old place or start to feel comfortable staying in only one room of her home. In fact, she's tried (in vain) to go to each window every day and write something down that she sees. Maybe she'll compile them all after a year and send it to a publisher. She had a conversation recently over breakfast about how publishers seem to love publishing lists. She'll make a list. And one person will think her strange while the other considers her a martyr. Her lonely attempt at salvation may even be someone else's suicide note. Strange. But it happens.


However...


She's starting to become deeply concerned that she will always be the voyeur.


She has been told on several occasions in the last few months that one of her most attractive qualities is her drive and her need to do her own thing and have her own passions. She is worried that these people have been greatly fooled. But perhaps her concern in lacking is a testament to that passion. She's trying to figure that out too. She'll get it. She's worried anyway.