Friday, November 30, 2018

Listen the Snow is Falling

There was a strange synchronicity that the song playing was called Death in Mid-Summer while i watched the first snowflakes of the season slowly drift through the headlights. I had just cruised  through the blackness of late November, as usual casually dragging off the vaporizer and contemplating the stars in the sky. It's a favorite past time of mine and as i pulled into the driveway this song came on by one of my favorite bands and as is apt to happen my mind began to drift and wander, yes the lyrics and the title had me thinking of Pops, i thought of how he had given the boyos their nicknames of Little Mac and Five-Star and how the boyos loved those names, i thought of his old place, of that apartment i spent so much time in last February and March as i cleaned out the remnants of his life, of how up until the age of 48, the same age i am now, he had tried to do everything right, or right in the sense that the actions he took were what he thought were right, what he was taught growing up in the America of the 1950's and 60's. And what did those actions get him? a wife who walked out at the first possible opportunity and a shattering of this so-called American Dream... but don't get me wrong, this is not some melancholy post for as i sat in my car thinking and listening to the words and the music a smile crept across my face, for in the last 26 odd years of his life Pops got to do exactly what he wanted, i could see him sitting in his apartment, the lamp on  the table next to him glowing, the snow blowing in off the lake, the television tuned to the Cavs or the Tribe or MSNBC, a book in one hand and a cigarette in the other. What he realized once he got over the hurt was that he had a freedom very few people are ever afforded. He spent his days reading and thinking and getting laid. He spent his nights working and days crunching numbers, studying the things he had always loved. How could i not smile thinking about him. It had turned out alright in the end. That smiled slipped into a grin as i exited the car and stood feeling the wind nip at my face, it was a beautiful four minutes, thinking about the three people i loved most in the world...

4 comments:

daisyfae said...

Pardon me for being so forward, but i look forward to a day in the future when you get that freedom... Years in the future, no doubt, if it happens. It was about 10 years from the time i knew i had to fly solo, until the time was right to spread those wings. The kids get it. They're happy for me. Their dad is happier than he ever could have been with me.

Exile on Pain Street said...

Good that he realized it was a gift after the hard times. Some folks never get there. My brother will be a wreck his entire life, never realizing how free he is.

Too bad about the Steelers' second half meltdown. Heh.

Kono said...

Ms. Daisy - no need to for the pardon Ms. Daisy, you know you can say what you want around here, this living thing is quite the ride and being a half ass zen monk and full time dudeist i know that if there is light there is dark and vice versa, it all shakes out in the end and in the present i do my best to enjoy it all, good and bad, because this time thing just keeps flowing like those three rivers and there ain't no use wasting it ;)

Exile- Once i realized he'd gotten there, which i had an inkling about but never really confirmed until March or so of this year, i was happy for the man, if anyone deserved it (not that anyone deserves anything) it was him... and sadly i have a financial interest (as relates the Breadwinner's businesses) in the Stillers and their winning and making the play-offs, except of course for two weeks out of the season.

kid said...

man, a post that makes me nostalgic for the winter homes of my past and present at once.

I have a photograph of that very piano he's sitting at around the two and half minute mark of the video. that is the Lost Horse Saloon in Marfa, Texas. pool tables, too. a lot of that looked like it was shot in Marfa or Valentine and along 90 on the county line. I've driven past that tree factory. I'll never call it an orchard. this time of year, all the cottonwood seed puffs even look like snow swirling to the ground.