Reflections

Lights blink on, gradually gaining the full florescent brightness. Blearily she opens her eyes, raising her face from where it was half-smushed against her pillow to peer at the man in the bed across the aisle from her, waiting for a signal from him as a tone sounds over the intercom. Two pitches alternating: ambulance, not fire.

They wait a moment longer for the dispatch information: Ambulance 035. That’s them. The other crew must have had a run last time her team was out. She watches as the man sits up, swings his feet over the edge, before following suit, sliding into her shoes as he does, blinking hard at the dryness in her eyes as she heads for the swinging door to the garage, glancing at the men in the rows of beds, already falling back into unconsciousness.

In the back of the ambulance she mutes the overhead lights, leaving the soft glow of multicolored twinkle lights as illumination. Fastening herself into the captain’s chair, she reads the dispatch information of the Tough Book screen as it plays over the intercom again. She twists around to peer the window behind her chair into the cab as her team studies the GPS. Their voices are low rumbles, gruff with sleep, and indecipherable from where she sits.

Body torqued and hunched over, cheek pressed against the leather headrest for a better view out the front windshield, she watches street lamps flit past. They’re riding silent, until they approach a red light. But once they are through, the siren is back off.

With a sigh, she turns back in her seat, resting her head back on the chair, eyes drifting lazily. Blue and red lights reflect off street signs and bounce back into the ambulance onto the stainless steel surfaces.

They pull to a stop in a residential neighborhood, silent, but the lights are strobing, illuminating the white-washed houses in bursts of color before plunging them back into darkness. It reflects off everything as they stand there on the front porch, a patch of cement in front of the door, cracked, but free of weeds. The team leader brings his hand up, raps on the door, brief and official: Fire Department.

Red and white light, pulsing in the night from the ambulance at the curb, curl around his face, casting deep shadows; red gliding onto his cheek bone, flitting through his spiked brown hair, reflecting off his glasses and the glass door, briefly painting the white of the house red before plunging it into darkness. The lights turn his blue gloves a sickly glowing purple as he raises his fist again, standing to the side, leaning on the door frame, an authoritative tap tap tap against the glass with the back of his hand. Lack of sleep and swirling lights are nausea inducing as they shift before the locked door, listening to the person inside make their way slowly to the door.

Two Questions

Considering the meaning behind the Holy days which are fast approaching, who are you looking forward to seeing? What will you say to them when you see them?

Happy Fall Holy Days!

The section marked off for family was filled with people she barely knew. Glancing over her shoulder into the crowd behind her she recognized a few familiar faces, friends, walking along the aisle. They, too, were wearing black. She gave a slight smile and waved. It was acknowledged, and she turned back around to face front.

It was beginning.

A baby on the front row squawked. She was wearing a velvety red dress with black shoes. Babies aren’t supposed to wear black. The mother turned and handed the baby over the back of the pew to her. She stood, conscience that most eyes were focused on her and the baby, instead of the speaker at the front. The lady beside her, the ladies on both sides of her offered to take the baby, but despite being related, she barely knew them. The baby didn’t know them at all. Edging her way past, she slipped into the aisle and tip-toed and bounced the baby to the back of the room. The baby was quieter now with crackers being pushed into her mouth, but still fussy. Her aunt bounced her again and switched hips, cuddling the baby and trying to hear what was being said. The baby’s mother was at the front of the room, standing, facing the audience, talking with a steady determination. Again the baby made a noise. People turned to look at them, offered to take the baby out of the room.

You don’t understand, she thought. She has ever right to stay in the room and cry. Her daddy’s up there in that box, even if she doesn’t realize it. She’s too young to know that she should be crying, but she is anyways. Some of them were crying too. But she stepped out of the room anyways.

Rocking the baby until she was asleep, she slipped back into the room to sit on the bench on the back. She barely heard what was being said; she wasn’t paying attention. All her thoughts focused on the child in her lap. Then it was over, people filing out row by row, glancing at the sleeping baby as they passed. Once they cleared the room, the men who had sat across from the family stood and approached the front. She stood and followed them, joining the family, then stepping to the side out of the way, the sleeping baby still draped across her arms. As she turned, she bumped the baby’s foot against something and woke her. Men opened the doors beside her as she tried to lull the baby back to sleep, but was no use. The men surrounded the coffin and wheeled it out the door. She made sure that he baby could see. She won’t remember it, and couldn’t understand the significance, but still it seemed important. She was reminded of To Kill a Mockingbird, “Jean-Louis stand up. Your father’s passing”.

They both watched as the baby’s father was lifted into the back of the hearse.

Country Roads

Home! Every semester it gets harder to go away. Is it possible to be homesick while being home - just being here wondering how I can be more home, longing for it, wanting to just stand outside and soak up the sunshine feeling the warm humid breeze wash over me. The drive through downtown, where all the oak trees are fully leafed out and the line the roads on both sides, branches intertwined overhead making a canopy. The light filters through a dappled yellow green. Live oaks are the most elegant trees. They're giant, yet peaceful looking with their meandering branches and rough bark. Just seeing them makes me want to grab a book and climb into one, snuggled down into the crook of a branch to read. I went to see an old teacher (not that she's old, but rather, I'm a former student of hers) today and yesterday. She's at a Jr. High now - a little one with just over 300 students back on a country road. There's no real security concerns, no fancy high-tech sign in, no way to lock down the entire school hallway by hallway. My teacher's classroom didn't even have an overhead in it. It still had chalkboards. I haven't seen chalk boards in a while. I could work in a place like that. She has a tiny budget, but still, I could work in a place like that. I could come home. Or at least be in a small-ish district close to the country, in a town that still has a country mentality, where a good sized portion of the students work around livestock and county fair is possibly more important than football.

La Madeline

My French teacher told us about an author that wrote about his childhood. There was this one memory that he wrote about so well about how his grandmother had made these pastries, and how the smell of them always brought that memory back. It was written so well, that the concept of a certain smell bringing a memory back is called "la madeline" after this pastry. I had something like that this week, but with taste.

It was my first year of teen camp. We had just finished our canoe trip and eaten lunch. Then, as tradition goes, we walked down to the little ice cream store and bought a cone of ice cream. I chose the best looking one. Black Raspberry something or other. It was amazing. It was sweet and creamy and tart and had chocolate bits in it. Mmmm!! When the next year came around, I was looking forward to that icecream. I still remembered how good it tasted - especially after the hard morning of paddling. But that ice cream shop was gone. There was another one down the street, but the ice cream wasn't *quite* as good. It didn't live up to the year of anticipation.

Yesterday I had a meeting a couple hours after school, so as tradition goes 0n meeting days (trust me, I need it), I stopped at Brahms to buy an ice cream cone - I'm trying to get through all the good flavors by the end of the school year. I already knew which flavor I was getting, since it had been recommended. The white chocolate raspberry cheesecake ice cream. After the first taste, I just kind of stopped. I knew that flavor. I hadn't tasted it in years. But there was no mistaking it. It was *that* ice cream flavor. The one I had looked forward to eating for an entire year. Memories came flooding back. The feel of the wind on my face, the smell of the water, the feel of a paddle in my hands, the soreness in my shoulders. I've never before eaten ice cream that made me want to excercise, but there was nothing I wanted to do more at that moment than to be in a canoe paddling toward that rocky beach.

Acts 12:2

It still hurts. I thought it didn't any more, that I'd stopped thinking about it long enough that it'd just gone away, but it hasn't. Being asked on the LGD about who I'd want to see and what I'd say to them when I get the chance brought it all back. I refused to cry. Refused to let everyone see. It took me 5 minutes to answer. Five minutes of sheer determination not to let those emotions show, although it was obvious by my standing there - it had everyone around me in tears with me not crying.

It doesn't help that I'm finally willing to let myself be somewhat emotionally vunerable again, to let someone know that they matter -that what they think of me matters to me, that I could be hurt. Does he realize that's what I was telling him? I don't think so -not fully at least. I hold on so tight because I'm afraid of it ending.

It's strange in a way, but the memory that has been playing through my head of late has almost nothing to do with him, yet everything to do with him. It was one of the summers that we e-mailed each other at least once a week. It must have been between 5th and sixth grade. That summer, I spent a lot of my time running round the neighborhood with a neighbor boy. We rough housed a lot, and when it came to water, we had an extreme escalation factor. There was a little squirt bottle of water in the house, and our 'fights' usually started there, and within 2 or 3 minutes, it had escalated from that to water guns to hoses and sneak attacks with gallon buckets filled with water. We had just started one of these battles, and I had rushed outside to find the water gun first (we only had one). My mom was checking the e-mail, and there was one for me. I dropped everything to reply to it, as I always did. I crawled in through the dining room window, and started typing a quick response - it had to be fast, b/c the neighbor boy had found the water gun and was waiting for me outside the open window. When I had sent my e-mail, I was out the window at a run. Just that brief moment of everything stopping, the exhilaration of running and chasing and playing juxtaposed with the excitement of hearing from him - seems to mean so much to me.

I miss that friendship. I still sometimes expect to hear from him - to get on-line on Friday night and chat or to see him. Letting there be emotions means dealing with these emotions, applying them to different circumstances, learning from the past, and making different decisions - different mistakes than I made last time.

Neverland

Never growing up, never being too old to do something; carefree and innocent. Fear doesn't exist, because the biggest fear is that of growing up, of being forced to make decisions that will shape the rest of your life. All those decisions are exciting and new, and maybe just a hint terrifying. There are consequences for every action, every choice, but standing still in the current of life is a choice as well - one that is convenient and safe, but one that won't let you stay young and protected. Life goes on, no matter what decisions you make. Some decisions are worth making, despite the penalty that may come from making them. Saying what must be said, terrified that it may destroy a much valued friendship. Is the friendship strong enough to hold? How will it change, because it will change, and will I know how to deal with that without damaging it, but making it grow? It can't be left unsaid. In Neverland it could, where nothing changes in the way this world does. Responsibilities that prove and enforce the idea that I'm no longer a child. I can't run away from that any more. I can't forever be just the student, only learning, only responding to tasks that others give me, but must be the one to teach, to help others to grow - focus outward instead of inward. It's terrifying, but exciting in its newness, taking on some responsibility, but finding more freedom than Neverland ever offered. In some ways, I'd like to step out of time and just watch it happen. I'm impatient for everything life could hold if I learn to make the right choices.