Out and Back

I was walking in a world unknown to me without a plan or a purpose. There was no objective to be met, targeted calories to burn or deadline to achieve. I was asked to merely walk and observe, to deposit sights and sounds into my soul for the purpose of what it might germinate and bring back into the world. I was in unfamiliar territory, but I was not unfamiliar with assignments and deadlines. Like all assignments, I wanted to ace this one. What could I observe that was brilliant and thought provoking? How could I awe and inspire others and be the best just as I do in my 9 to 5 world? I walked and observed, trusting that I would find sufficient material to work with.

Out of the corner of my eye a porch swing appeared. I thought about all of the people who may have sat on it. Since the house it was hanging on was old I figured it too had seen many days and had many stories to tell. I thought about Mothers and Daughters, Husbands and Wives all in their best moments and worst. I had quickly acquired some content for my story and I was excited that it was fairly creative and I filed it my memory bank and thought about how I would share it later. Wow, what a creative concept to share, I thought. As my pen was scribbling the notes on my notepad I began to sense some emotion I in this moment. I had experienced this before so I knew I had to quickly push it down into a separate compartment since I didn’t have time for it. I had to finish my assignment. I completed my writing about the porch swing and continued on.

As I observed people in places and overhead conversations I got out my pen and wrote about them in my journal hoping the descriptive language they all deserved would flow now or in the future when it was time to share. I could rely on my humor which always got me through, if I didn’t have anything else. The men in the coffee shop talking about their college football teams were wildly entertaining. “I’d give anything to have the defense Michigan has this year. Wisconsin’s is in the toilet,” I heard one say. “They’ve struggled with that for years, the ED has never addressed the systemic issues around recruiting, it’s horrible” the other said. As knowledgeable about football as I am these two weren’t even talking a language I was familiar with. You could tell it was a topic they both enjoyed as their voices were raised above all other noise of clanging dishes, steam coming from the Barista station and the constant jingle of the bell as coffee drinkers came in one by one.

As I scribbled more notes in my notepad I glanced at the gentleman next to me who had a legal sized pad with four to five full pages of notes written out and lying next to his tablet that he was continuing to write feverishly on. “How could he write so much and so freely in this noisy coffee shop?” I thought to myself. “He’s so focused. What could he be writing about? A story? A journal? Is it work or a hobby?” I was so curious but I knew it would be completely inappropriate to interrupt his train of thought to ask him. I had so many questions so I just stared at him. He was un-phased by my vibe, and didn’t stop for a moment to even glance my way. He was un-phased by my jedi mind tricks so I finished my drink and was gathering my things as I noticed a Mother and her two daughters approaching the coffee shop. The girls had bags in their hands, one of them a clear bag with a stuffed giraffe inside. She looked so proud of it, and I wondered why a parent would buy their children things so close to Christmas.

Opinions rushed through my head immediately and I wondered if I had ever succumbed to the same pressure. I’m sure I had once or twice. As they walked back by the window the girls each had drinks in their hands which I assumed was hot chocolate but I didn’t see the bag with the giraffe. The Mom was handing drinks to the passengers in the car and the little girls were walking and sipping their hot chocolate and observing the world. They looked happy now but I was bracing for the moment when they realized the giraffe was gone. The car doors shut and car drove away. Now I was getting up from my table and I walked out the same door they just had a few seconds prior. I looked around and saw no giraffe. I walked the length of the building and looked through the glass to see if I could see the clear bag but it was nowhere to be seen. In my quest to solve the dilemma a Christmas tree appeared in the window, and next to it were two large boxes that were repositories for gifts that we often see in grocery stores, shopping malls, or churches this time of year. I walked closer to the window and peeked inside to see what was in the boxes and there was the clear plastic bag with the giraffe. I smiled. I thought about her smile. She gave, and she received. A hot chocolate warmed her stomach but maybe it was the warmth in her heart about the child she knew would play with the giraffe on Christmas morning. Or maybe her smile was because those two things combined made for the perfect morning. I thought about the assumptions I’d made earlier and chuckled to myself. The great mystery was solved and I was on my way to the next store.

I walked up and down the street and through a few more stores where I jotted a few more notes. The time was getting close so I started to return to my origin. I decided to take a suggested route down Forest Avenue that was supposedly very pretty. My new objective was to return on time and not keep anyone waiting and I estimated my time of arrival without stops to have precisely five minutes to spare. I knew my writing was done now and the task had shifted back to transportation only.

The voice I had placed in that other compartment earlier on my walk had now begun knocking and sputtering and making all sorts of noises. I ignored it. But then the birds stopped singing, the cars started going in the opposite direction and sweet smells of challa bread were fading. I stopped and took a deep breath to try bring it back, “where are the Japanese noodles and the lamb kebabs?” I couldn’t smell them anymore. The air smelled like nothing. The voices became very loud and clear, “You don’t have anything in your notebook. What will you talk about? You didn’t write anything, you just scribbled a bunch of notes. What’s interesting about a porch swing and people talking in a coffee shop? You don’t know how to put all of your words into a story. You stumble on your words when you tell a story, remember? You haven’t been creative in a very long time, you won’t know how to write now. Your Mom told you you could be anything you wanted to be but she never read your writing. Anyway, that’s what all Moms say to their children.”

I looked down at the ground and I wondered why I wore these shoes since they don’t fit my feet very well. I put my hands in my pockets and just walked. I took pictures of places that would make my trip look interesting on Facebook. My chest got tight and tears began to well up in my eyes. I told them to go away, I didn’t want to deal with them today. Not now, not here. What did they want from me? Did they want me to say that I never got the chance to sit on the porch swing with my Mom and have her tell me stories? Did they want me to say that no one had ever spent time with me long enough to listen to my stories? Did they want me to talk about what the porch swing said to me as I walked by it?

I stopped and I listened to the voices and I got my notepad out one last time. I put my pen to the paper and I wrote the words of the porch swing, “Dana, come and sit down with me. Let’s talk about your dreams. Why do you keep hiding them and packing them in boxes only to keep moving them with you from place to place but never taking them out? Do you remember your first grade teacher Mrs. Clark who told you how creative you were? She loved your story about the Christmas tree and read it in front of the class. Everyone stared at you, it made them happy too. Remember your English teacher in the 9th grade how he looked at you when discussing the poetry assignment to the class and said that there was one submission that captured his attention so intensely that he thought it was brilliant? When he handed you your paper he said it again in your ear. Your Mom told you you could be anything you wanted to be because she believed in you. Do you believe in you?”

The porch swing made me angry. I didn’t want to listen anymore because his words were very painful. As I approached my destination I prepared for my speech, the sales pitch I was about to give about my adventure. I knew I could wing it, I knew I could come through at the last minute like I always do. And I knew I could do it without talking about the things the porch swing talked to me about. I could hold those things inside for later, for some other time when I was ready.

“Out and back” I told myself. “This is the title of your story”. You went out and you created, you came back and you destroyed. That’s what you’ve been doing to everything you create. You create it and you determine it to be unworthy of consideration and you water it down, make it into something different, or you destroy it altogether.

My stomach was upset, my head was hurting, and the tears were flowing like rivers now. Where do you want to go? You’re at a crossroads. You know where each path leads. Both have frustration and both have fear but only one is fulfilling. I took a walk to try to settle my stomach and I knew what I needed to do. I went back to the porch swing. “You made me angry earlier because you told me stories about my past that I wanted to forget. I thought my life was better now that I had forgotten them and you made me have faith in myself again. I didn’t want to. It was easier when my Mom did it for me. It was easier when she reminded me even though I never did anything about it. Now I have to do this without her. I have to do it alone.” I stood there at the fork in the road, raised my hand in Babe Ruth declaration and pointed to the porch swing and I said, “I’m going to write and that’s all I have to say about that.”

I turned and continued my walk down the street. I could hear dogs barking and a faint smell of noodles and challa bread were in the air. The cars passing by muffled the sound of the dogs periodically. The air was crisp and my heart was warm. My shoes had walked a lot of miles that day and I had seen and smelled and felt a lot of things. I took a deep breath and I looked around, curious to know what I would see next.