Time Was Like Water, But I Was The Sea in anticlimatic

The amount of time I spent as a kid baking on sidewalk stoops and curbs- stranded by childhood limitations, boredom, and peer pressure- was truly Lovecraftian in it’s scope (as well as madness inducing horror). I would loiter around where the other kids in my small town limited proximity were- typically on the downtown steps and streets of low traffic structures or businesses, where no one would notice or at least kick up a fuss if they discovered new guests.

These were the summer hours without a dime to one’s name, waiting for a parent to get home, or to take us away to something else. Nowhere to go, nothing to do. Questions, of life and physics. The memorized pattern of grass in the cracks of the curb- a single dandelion, 5 cigarette butts, and a small puddle in a patch of gravel. Count all 5 butts. Count them a 32nd time. Let the heat get all the way from the stone steps and sidewalks into your bones. Laugh together. Gang up on someone who deserves it. Break for dinner, repeat the next day.

If there was one thing I’d say was great about growing up, that I never thought I would admit, it would be how much I appreciate the hours I spent stranded and bored out of my mind, recycling the same environmental stimulus over and over to the point of converting the static to the dynamic.

If I could choose a dream, I’d chose to imagine waking up on the floor on a summer Saturday afternoon without a care in the world, while some adult caretaker nearby did dishes and listened to a radio full of adult problems that were all part of someone else’s world.