This Time, Years Ago

This time, one year ago, I was biking through Golden Gate Park at 2am, when everything is still. I'm riding home from Karyn's place. My heart aches a little, and I'm smiling on the inside. The lighting from the street lamps makes everything look flat, almost black and white. The air is cool and I feel prickly as I start to sweat. I stand on my cranks and pedal hard to get a running start at the last bit of hill. I have to wake up at 7am for work tomorrow.

This time, two years ago, I was eating a pile of breaded, deep-fried something with a scoop of mac salad on the side. The diversity of Honolulu makes me feel at ease. I like that people wear Hawaiian shirts without any irony. After having malasadas for breakfast, I feel a bit disgusted with myself.

This time, three years ago, I was having tea. The teahouse is tucked into the mountains above Lake Louise in the Canadian Rockies. Everybody's a tourist and the squirrels sneak off with bits of scone when no one is looking.

This time, four years ago, I was looking at the stars. I'm shivering in the cold at 12,000 feet, but that doesn't matter because I can see the Milky Way. Everywhere it is dark except for the light of distant stars. Laying down on my bed of granite, I feel like I am made of stone. My legs are stiff from hiking, and I'm too excited/uncomfortable to fall asleep. I will wake up at dawn tomorrow and hike to the top of Mount Whitney.

Day 119

I'm pretty awful at smalltalk. That's just how it is.

It was about two years ago, right around this time in high school that I was smalltalking with Griffin. We were both in AP English, and right before the exam, our school's English department hosted a miniature buffet of power foods. So there we were, standing in the lobby of our school's auditorium, waiting to take our test, amidst a press of people. I must have had a dixie cup full of fruit salad or something, but I distinctly remember that Griffin had a paper plate filled to the brim with rice cracker snacks.

Now, Griffin and I were never especially close (though at that moment, we were practically squeezed together), but it was senior year of high school, and everyone was supposed to be everyone else's friend. I have something of a bad habit of talking to acquaintances. It's a bad habit because I usually barely know the person and we have nary a thing to talk about. What ends up happening is that, in desperate recognition of this fact, I drag out my dusty old fact file on the target acquaintance, and I blather on about something vaguely pertinent to one of the scant facts I know about that person. Usually, the other person is polite enough to smile and nod periodically.

So here's a special peek at the Griffin Tyree dossier that I had on file that day:
1. Griffin is a really nice guy.
2. Even though he's a really nice guy, he played the villain in Le Miserables.
3. Griffin is in Best Buddies club (he mentors kids with learning/developmental disabilities; See fact #1).
4. Griffin is considering joining the clergy (99% sure he's a Christian).

All my life I've never been part of an organized religion, so I seized upon this moment as a golden opportunity to expand my knowledge of the Scripture. It went something like this:

Me: Hey there, Griffin.
Griffin: Hi David.
Me: Hey, what's that bible quote mean, the one that goes, "My cup runneth over"?
Griffin: The overflowing cup is supposed to be a symbol of God's bounty.
Me: Oh, that's cool.
(Pause)
Me: Well, I see that your paper plate runneth over... with rice snacks!
(Silence)

I'd hate to think that those were the last words I ever shared with him, but I have the gnawing suspicion that they were.

Day 94

Today was a rainy day. I think rain pattering, on rooftops, down drains, or onto sidewalks, is one of the best sounds in the whole world. I remember sitting in my elementary school gym when they would play movies on rainy days during lunch. It was crowded and damp, and the smell of Lunchables salami hung in the humid air. I can't remember a single movie that we watched. Maybe it didn't happen.

In class, I realize now the chaotic nightmare the teachers must have had to deal with. I simply remember the contentment of building. It didn't really matter with what; tiny wood cutouts of color-coded geometric shapes or interlocking plastic cubes with sockets and connectors on their faces were some of my preferred materials, though.

Perhaps it is symptomatic of my being male, but from an early age, anything that vaguely resembled a gun was a gun. One rainy day we had an illicit gun workshop, and business was good. We were using the interlocking plastic cubes, since the ability to detach and reattach the clips of ammo was so cool. We had a stockpile of weaponry stashed away in the classroom, and I remember a distinct sense of shame upon its discovery.

Working with kids now, I am reminded of the lack of inhibitions and the plethora of anxieties that used to fill my life; how great it was to run around with arms locked rigid like the wings of an airplane, and how terrible it was to have to wait in line for ice cream when the people at the front were already getting theirs. I think it's easy to forget how much we worried as kids, maybe we worried more. How else could we channel the joy, the wild abandon of the play yard if not for the nagging possibility that one recess the sky might start falling?

Well, I'm a big kid now; bigger, but still vulnerable to the same anxiety when I was small. Some nights, I fall asleep with a feeling of dis-ease. The dark caves in, and the old feeling comes back. And when the next morning finally comes, what a joy it is to come back to the surface and feel the sunshine once more.

Day 92

First a story: We were hiking back to the trailhead, where our car was parked, when we met him. We slowly came to a stop as we approached each other.

"Is the journey far?" he asked in a slight German accent. His translation had taken a rather metaphysical quality.

"No," I said with an embarrassed grin. We had camped at a spot just out of sight of our parked car in the wide desert valley. We had gorged ourselves on sleep and food.

He wore sneakers and drank from reused plastic water bottles. According to the dust that permeated his bandana he had been out for a few days, but his beard said that he had been out longer. His sun spectacles seemed as if they were a permanent fixture his face.

He wished us well and continued on his way.

For the duration of the trip, and the drive back home, the mythos surrounding The German grew only larger. In a flight of fancy, we ascertained that he was composed not of matter, but was rather a light emanation generated by string resonance, and that he thought in harmonics rather than words. Conclusions: 1. The German was a manifestation of the vibrating life force imbued in all living creatures. 2. We had completed our vision quest. 3. The German had been our spirit guide.

Now another story: Today I received the first two of a total of five hours of training. Tomorrow morning I receive the rest as I am hastily pressed into service. It makes me feel very Red Army.

After that, I get my license to kill... invasive, non-native plant species, as a part of the Strawberry Creek Restoration Program, under the auspices of our illustrious leader, Tim Pine (I wish I were named after a conifer). Our trainings had no shortage of war metaphors, the most colorful of which drew on the fact that our poorly-funded program relies on networks of independent cells (of which I will soon be a leader), leading to a comparison with al-Qaeda. That got some laughs. And then he continued to plow on.

As long as I'm planting seeds and not bombs.

Smells

I remember the smell of waking up on Saturday mornings in my house. The aroma would hit me as soon as my foot touched the last step at the bottom of the staircase into the dining room. Sitting in his dining room chair with its sagging cushion would be my dad, back from his morning run in the Marin Headlands. That was back when he ran marathons. Sometimes he still does, even though it's bad for his knees. Anyway, he'd sit there and read the newspaper and maybe eat some junk food as a reward. And the room would smell like his sweat. Not like the body odor of the armpit in need of deodorant squeezing against you on the bus. Rather, it was the smell of sweat that has gone cold and permeated into one's clothes.

Usually (always, actually) it was just me and him, awake that early in the morning. I'm pretty sure I prided myself on being the second earliest waker in the family, even if it was only to watch morning cartoons instead of train for a marathon. I liked the tense stillness in the air of those Saturday mornings, like the house was holding its breath, about to sigh. My dad sat there, seemingly at rest, and yet I knew where he had come from and how the house would start buzzing again once my sisters and my mom woke up.

But for the time being, it was still quiet in the house, so I would make my bowl of cheerios and head towards the living room TV, without saying anything.

This morning I went running with my roommates. When we came back, I got a whiff of that same sweat smell, and was immediately transported back to this memory.