Entry 9/3/17

Last night I saw the moon for the first time-it was a lunar eclipse, and I was with my Dad and our dog, Ian.  Ian has eyes like marbles and a long snout, and is shaggy with fur- sable and white.  I keep a picture of him on my refrigerator, and I look at it when I get lonely, and I wish I could go back to the days when I was with him.  He died.

We were walking down a side street, by the public grammar school that I grew up thinking that I was better than, because of multiple sources.  The moon was a crescent, among clouds that gathered around it; but because I couldn’t see the rest of the moon, like I usually could, I didn’t know what to think of the clouds.  They could have been precipitation hanging low in an autumn night, they could have been the manifestation of angels that I couldn’t see, but held close to me in the back of my mind- the part that no one sees and therefor remains safe. 

My Dad pointed up high- “See the moon? It’s a lunar eclipse.”  I asked him if it was the same as a solar eclipse, and he said, “No, you can look at it,” and then I felt safe.  My Dad wasn’t scared of anything; not of eclipses, or of juvenile delinquents that would drive down the same side streets, fast, crossing our paths on late night walks.  I thought to myself, at that moment, of the possibility that these people where the ones that I used to go to school with, or that I did go to school with, at the time.  Later on that night a car cruised by us, and I could see the red of a girl’s eyes- a girl I thought I used to know, if looks weren’t deceiving- and I could tell they, those in that car, were the type that couldn’t give any less of a f***, maybe even less than that- maybe they gave so much of a f*** that it made them soar, in the middle of the night when they lie in their beds, the hate penetrating through their bodies, only in such a way that could be uncovered in unconsciousness, so that when the moment came where they needed it, to show it, to feel it, they would be able to, only because they would remember that time in their lives when they weren’t afraid in it.

So yeah- me and my Dad used to roam the streets at night, by the recently renovated public school, by the main busy street.  Sometimes we would be alone, with people in cars driving buy, sometimes I would see such people, that I would recognize from school, in the streets, hanging out- not quite causing trouble. One such group of people, another night, I saw in the middle of the street, the lead boy (lead because he was the male I recognized), remembering correctly (?), bouncing a ball out of amusement.  Maybe this was the way he was showing his energy to those around him- maybe in some mystical, not quite (but possibly) malevolent way, he was giving IT to those watching.  Thinking back (I can’t prove this is true) this fits the scene.  Or maybe they were just scared/uncomfortable around me- because they (the boy I recognized, at least) weren’t my friends.  But the ball bouncer (Mick) managed to shout out my name- but I ignored it, being too embarrassed to say hello in front of my Dad (who knows what he would have said? (he being either Mick and/or my Dad)). 

The one girl (the only girl? Not sure) I recognized was wearing a flowered shirt/sweater, and she was scared of me and/or my Dad.  I could tell this by the manner that she ran away from us when we passed by.  Looking back, I realize she would have been scared of me because she didn’t really know me.  I went to high school with her for a while.  Had we grown up together, more, had I hung out with her, this wouldn’t have been so.  But that’s how it was.  Even the slightest characteristic of a person can screw their whole reputation.  What if something about me wasn’t apparent to these people, before, and now is, but there is some other factor about this secret that remains unknown- only to be found out in the next life (meaning the forties?).  But I am just exaggerating here- what could possibly be so scary about me that someone runs away from me, in the night, in the dark, on a side street?  Now the memory of the ball bouncer makes me think of grammar school.  The intuition I get about the girl running away from my Dad and I leads me to think that there was something she didn’t know about me, and I didn’t know about her, but in my memory of her there is a higher plane of her and “being ok” with people.

But that was my Saturday night- my Dad, the moon, my dog, and the unknown.