septemberist

Sloan wooed me unconventionally by telling me that I was not pretty, really, nor was I beautiful. Still, I had drunk enough that when we escaped from the smoky apartment out onto the balcony, and he traced his fingers around my lips, across my cheek, and into my hair, I leaned into the sensation and into him.

It was one night and probably should have remained so. But months later, when Sloan asked me to drive to Austin for the weekend, I said yes. That first night, we were barely friends. The following morning, we walked through the park, avoiding grackles and kite-fliers, and touch each other lightly, electrically, constantly. We told shy secrets about ourselves, accelerating into the dance of courtship. In the evening, still brushing lightning with fingertips, our secret-telling became bolder.

These encounters are what I page to when re-reading the summer of 1995. Sometimes, I’ll read further, to the night of the fireflies that danced halos over the statue of St. Francis in the garden, or the absolute stillness of him as I traced the back lines of the cross on his back, or even the endless games of Hearts played with Noah and Rebecca as the afternoon sun woke showers of dust in the air. I try to stop before the day that Sloan left or when he came back, when the rhythm of secrets and laughter was broken, and when instead of brushing sparks, our fingers only drummed an ending.

Posted by erica at 10:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When my father took us fishing, he would drive down to Linley's, the gas station store at the turnoff from the highway to the shale road where my grandmother's and grandfather's houses were, to buy a bucket full of minnows. Once we got older and braver, we would ride our bikes up and down the hills of that shale road to buy grape pops and Big League Chew bubble gum (all except for Brad Cooper, who at 8 years old was already chewing real tobacco). But when Dad wasn't with us and we wanted to fish, we'd raid my grandfather's old refrigerator for American cheese and baloney. If my brother, Matt, could be convinced to ask, Grandpa would give us bacon, but because he was the only boy among us, Matt had an early sense of entitlement and often couldn't be cajoled in doing anything for us girls.

When we were very young, we had cane poles with line, bobbers, and hooks, and not much else. Later, we would all have cheap reels and a tackle box, but that wasn't until at least one of us, probably Matt, was judged responsible enough for a fishing knife.

Fortified with our slimy bait and cane poles, we would tramp through the pasture to the ponds Grandpa had the county dig when they mined the shale. Most of the ponds were seeded with perch or catfish, and we could fish from those all we wanted. Further back were two bass ponds that we could only fish in with Grandpa's permission. Of course, generally only Matt, being the only grandson at the time, was invited to fish the bass ponds. Stacey, the de facto grandson when Matt and I were back home in the suburbs, often fished back there. But not when the true grandson was around.

Instead, we'd fish the perch ponds with our baloney and American cheese and give Matt hell for being Grandpa's favorite. Of course, later, Matt would go into town with Grandpa to get an ice cream cone and watch him play cards while we burned our bare feet on the hot shale road walking over to Grandma Marie's for ice tea and store brand sandwich cookies.

Posted by erica at 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I believe in fresh starts, clean slates. As such, I’m starting at least this tiny recording of my life over. I’m not kidding myself about the wear on the record or even the ragged edge of the stylus. I expect to warble, slide, and skip.

Over the past few weeks, events occurred and decisions were made that have opened my eyes to just how out of focus I’ve become. Part of that blur, I think, may result from the lack of words in my life. If you know that I edit things for my job, then that might not entirely make sense. But it’s not just words that I’m missing; I’m missing my words.

So I’m going to write again and teach and learn, but I want to do it differently.

Like every American soul my age, I find myself referencing Say Anything more often than I should (even if it is just mentally--or in conversation with my husband, which is very similar). Nevertheless, I’ll embrace my inner trite and use the words of the inimitable Lloyd Dobler to explain why I chose to take down the words of the last few years:

"Maybe I didn't really know you. Maybe you were just a mirage. Maybe the world is full of food and sex and spectacle and we're all just hurling towards an apocalypse, in which case it's not your fault. I'm been thinking about all these things and . . . you're probably standing there monitoring. And one more thing--about the letter. Nuke it. Flame it. Destroy it. It hurts me to know it's out there. Later."

Posted by erica at 09:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)