Oh, if you knew what it meant to me

There are things I've always known.

I biked with my 12 year-old gem of a kin, Michael, yesterday. He's been begging me to go biking with him all summer, and I have been regrettably "tomorrowing" him every time. But I'm so glad I finally went. 

Our destination was Sonic, probably ten minutes from my house via car, but easily 30 plus minutes on cycle. First we went to the nostalgic track I cited a few posts ago. We biked there, and despite the condemning "No Bikes, Animals, or Amateurs" pseudo-sign, we contravened the rules. With a hazy-ing 110 degree feel, Michael and I could only comprehend walking. After one lap of swimming through the deep-end of air, and unable to do another, I trapeezed onto my bike parked next to the bleachers, and started circling the track. While there were no other track-ees to watch out for (or piss off, for the matter), it felt badass, and wonderful. Michael joined me and together we did a couple miles, Best Coast and Beach Boys flooding and fueling my system. I don't know how long he had been doing it, but I noticed, waking from my sun daze, that Michael was standing in the middle of the lawn on the inside of the track, beneath the single, stoic sprinkler, getting drenched. I don't know what it was about the picture I saw, but I've never seen him look so old.

After the track, Michael and I took off on the trek to Sonic. I assumed we would be riding the streets, but to my surprise, we made it almost the whole way a la trail. It was great. It was great to have Michael lead the way as "tour guide." It was great to see how happy that made him. It was great to dust off the settings of so many of my childhood memories treated with thoughtless inattention. It was great to see Michael experience something good and not worry about our financial situation that he should not have to give a shit about. I will tell you this: there are few feelings as great as wind steering your bike down a huge hill while you listen to that one favorite song. 

The highlight of the trek was actually at the very beginning: Plunging into the woods on my 1950s cycle,   I was overwhelmed by the pungent smell of it all, and commented on it. Instead of agreeing, or not saying anything (*not uncommon for most pre-pubescent adolescents), Michael said, "It's life, Katie." 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGYIWrZm5no

Roman Candles

-bits from the work.

"Her apartment was huge. I was surprised at seeing anything at all because she's one of those people I can't picture living anywhere. Even after she took out her keys, I still really didn't believe she lived in the fancy complex. It would, after all, be totally like her to "borrow" an apartment from someone.

But as soon as I peered inside, I knew it was hers. The hard wood floor I sensed was there was not only invisible, but the piles of clothes on the floor were shaped into mountains and valleys, mocking any notion of a floor at all. The clothes were permanent, perennial fixtures in the room that looked like they had been there for years.

Awkwardly, I looked around the room for something, anything that reassured me that someone could actually live there. Hung stark on the bare walls, I spotted a calender. I waded knee deep in clothes to get a closer inspection; it was four years old."

You Stay. I Go. No Following.

So, decided to throw down the old school XANGAA layout for this post. 

Currently Listening To: Light Pollution, Keepaway, Elsinore

Currently Reading: "The Irresistible Henry House"

Current Mood: Strung-out

"Part of the problem is nothing is true 

and nothing has happened at all Used to let me see your yellow wings"

Now I'm gonna accompany the "currents" of xangaism with a harmony of facts.

1. I've been walking on this nostalgic, forgotten track by my house. It's about a mile away, and I manage to bike or walk there almost everyday. And everyday, iPod super-glued to my ears, I walk. Sometimes I vary this walking with running/jogging, but most of the time I walk. I was about to write that I love it, because it keeps me sane, but that's not true. I don't love it, it's just something that I have to do.

 Because out there on the beaten-up track, I fall into a black-turf hole of my thoughts, my nostalgia. I think, I discover, I learn, I cringe, I smile, I wait, I yearn, I can- control one thing in my life: walking on the track. (And yes, I DO REALIZE I am, indeed, walking in "circles." And no, the irony does not escape me.) 

2. I went to Omaha for the fourth of july and although I didn't really manage to see fireworks, I happened to catch them on the ride home with my Dad. I was syncing into hibernation with Bon Iver, when my Dad woke me and pointed to the fireworks. But first I noticed the sky. We were on a highway passing over some forest and lake, and the sky looked......like nothing I had ever seen before. It looked mature. And I felt like I had caught the clandestine sky in an act of finality. On impulse, I looked away, then realized how ridiculous I was. 

SO, I readjusted my eyesight to the eyesore of fireworks. I've always loved fireworks, whether it be fireworks themselves, the Animal Collective triumph, or the in-utterable feeling. But these fireworks were boring: collections of the Time Square Balls on New Year's Eve, all of which would rise, then fall. Predictable, gaudy, and elated with mendacious hope of what is to come after it all.