My 9 Year Old Bedroom

I stood on the dock trying to figure out the path I walked to get here. I zigged and zagged through old stories of childhood. Then I took a left at adolescence. I know I went to college and took a u-turn. All because I grew tired of long hair and alcoholic trips. I drove over the hills of my twenties and now I stand here, in Missouri, with strangers at my back.

The dock sways with the waves. Its, less than graceful, movement is more like an argument than a dance. The chain on the flag pole rattles as the various boards creek out their song to the water. The air is about the temperature of a March 15^th in Minnesota. Which is cold enough to need a coat but not chilly enough to go and get one. There’s a mixed drink of flattened soda and spiced rum in my hand and I’m not sure why I’m not drinking it. The various lights on the far shore resemble the Lite Brite game as they display on the hillside. It looks like a taxi cab or a yellow fish.

Sitting down, as the waves finally calm, I kick my last leg on to the lounge chair. I wish I had a book to read. I guess it’s all right that I don’t because the nearest light is somewhere near my coat. It’s too bad, really. I came to this lake, in these hills, trying to find some peace. Instead, I found pieces. Pieces of the stories that everyone is trying to write.

I want to not to be influenced or changed from my style. I find it to be a carefully crafted machine that only works in characters with ten minute lives. In my heart, I know there is probably more. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have listened. I would have just sat back in this chair and hoped the mole, that is inspiration, would just burrow itself into my mind. In my heart, I know that’s not how it works.

So as the darkness bends and creeps through the lighted ripples in the water, I start to remember innocence. I remember the many days that I came home without a single grass stain on my pants. I remember dancing around to “The Rhythm of the Night” at a 45 speed. The house was so small to me but my room always felt big.

I‘d intentionally let my room get messy for weeks. Then one day motivation would be served like breakfast in bed, and I would clean it. Top to bottom, I would clean it. I would dust the wood with furniture polish. I would vacuum exactly 15 minutes after I put the pungent powder on the carpet. Every toy would be matched up with its little plastic gun or trailer that carried a non-detachable boat. When I was done…when my 9 year old room looked like a chic hotel with bunk bed. I would stand in the doorway and think how absolutely huge my room was. It was the feeling of conquering a foe.

Now I am so jaded and alone. Happiness always comes at me sideways. It’s always late for an appointment and leaves on the same whim that blew it in. Some might find it good that happiness is so good to pop in on me as often as it does. However, I am a man of structure and of detail. I often like to know the road I am driving on; in this case, living on. I am like a fiend for this knowledge. I sit and tie the tourniquet with all the places I need to be and I slap arm with the times I need to be there. It’s a real addiction. So this whimsical delight is a little like cops coming to through the door.

Sadness isn’t a true definition of how I feel at the moment. It’s more of a perpetual annoyance at the slumber I seem to be jumping around in. This, at times, will squeeze a tear from eye. I guess I am feeling the feeling of sitting here, on this dock, waiting for a boat to arrive.