A bit of Memoir

I guess I should have missed my father since he was dead. He’d been dead for several years then, but as I recall I was more concerned with the damp chill, the spitting rain that covered the day like a soggy blanket so that I wasn’t sure if it was day or night.

I remember the puddle of cold, cold water at my feet, my black patent leather Mary Janes mud-spattered, my once-white Buster-Brown socks soaked, clinging and iced against my feet, the trickle of water from the umbrella overhead that always seemed to drain down the back of my neck – icy fingers against my spine. The only warm spot was the hand my mother held tightly in hers.

Taller than my head, a dark grey stone marked where my father lay. I remember wondering why anyone wanted to spend eternity in the dank ground suffocated by soil and covered with bugs and things. But like most young children, my attention soon wandered away from the stone to the churchyard. The cemetery was attached to a church dating from long, long before even my parent’s births. The rain-drenched trees lining the outside of the cemetery morphed into unnamed monsters from nightmare worlds when seen from the corner of my eye – when I looked directly, they once more became innocent trees draped with sodden leaves that faded into that misty time.

My brother stood on the other side of my mom and when I peaked around her crinoline dress skirt, he would scowl and stick his tongue out at me. At nearly five years older than I, he was as he continually reminded everyone, the man of the family now that daddy had died.

It’s hard to miss someone you never really knew at least, until someone else tells you, shows you, you’re somehow less for not having one.



(Just a bit of memoir - not sure what, if anything, I'm going to do with it.)

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The View

Each weekday like many others I travel from my home to a job. For most of the year, it’s dark when I leave home and dark once more by the time I arrive back. My job is performed in an office located on the bottom floor of a building tucked back in a spot that most never see. While I spend the majority of my time glued to a computer screen, outside the world still turns. The sun rises then sets again, days flowing one into another while I, like most, scramble to get everything done.

I am fortunate to have a partial window wall. It allows light, provides a small view of the world beyond, and gives a much needed respite from the computer. I make a point to take a few minutes several times daily to relax and watch the view outside my windows.

The window wall stretches about fifteen feet across the east end of my office area and even though there is a half wall, they tower almost nine feet overhead. In the morning sun the glass shimmers and dances across the view. At noon, it appears you could stretch out your hand and touch the wind as it flows by. In the afternoon, it shadows across the sight like a memory. It becomes a frame, extra, extra large size, around the world outside.

In the forefront of my window on the world is a paved drive traversed by vehicles in all shapes, sizes, and intentions. Beyond the drive, the land humps into a hillside blanketed by spiky blades of grass, sleeping now but soon to erupt in vibrant emerald. On the crest of the hill are a sand volleyball court and a soccer field occasionally peopled but mostly forlorn and empty.

Today there was a man on the crest wandering through the sand court. Round and round, a circle within a circle, over and over, ever-expanding. I found myself glued to the picture outside. Soon my boss joined me, each speculating to the other on what he was doing out there.

Finally, we determined he had a metal detector. Was he searching for something lost? Hoping for something found? He circled around and around, further and further away until he was a speck against the sky that tumbles into the hillside. Then he vanished. Once again there was only a blazing blue sky caressing the crinkly brown hillside spiked with the angular lines of dormant trees.

Prompt: write about a view, 2009

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