Walking in to work every day, I cross a busy street. I look down a lot when I walk it seems and am paid to notice stuff. In the tar of that street, I have noticed that things collect. A penny, a pair of sunglass frames, a large washer.
I grew up on the leading edge of sprawl in a suburban '60's house on a reclaimed pig farm. Every house that broke ground was an olfactory insult. Our house was the first in our subdivision. Oh, these weren't the tract houses of today that get vomited out overnight at the expense of every tree and green thing. At this point, a house was still a point of pride for the builder and less about profit margin. It had real plaster walls and was solid enough to withstand being struck by lightning. In that neighborhood, concrete joins were sealed with tar.
Summers there were slow. No school. Pickle. Swinging Statues. Barefeet. Red Rover and lightning bugs in an old mayonaise jar. Flying down Rossford hill on my bike. Jumping through lawn sprinklers and sitting on the curb popping bubbles that the heat made in the tar. It should have been perfect.
It wasn't finished when we moved in. My dad finished the entire upstairs including a sprawling dormitory room, a full bath, a small office, and a master bedroom with built in cabinets and tons of storage. It was a glorious space, but one that still makes anger and fear creep over my heart. I hated that house and what happened there. I hate the way it broke me. I hate that it silenced me for most of my life. Like one of those sabre-tooth tigers they found in La Brea, part of me got trapped in the tar of that house. The wild part. The innocent part. The strong part. The best part.
Things that Collect in the Tar
An old penny
twisted aviator frames
a large washer
a busted pen
lightning bugs in mayonaise jars
spent ammo from a berry war
children laughing
relentless sunshine
cracked heart
twisted memories
spent innocence
busted dreams
I sit quietly and
pop the rising bubbles
I release them
Fantastic!
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