There is so much pollen in the air that my keyboard, that was inside by bike-briefcase, is covered in yellow. My eyes can’t emit any more tears and my nose cannot emit any more snot. I’m sitting near a bridge and just sucked down a mango smoothie with only one instance of brain freeze. I’m going to pick up ice cream, put it in my briefcase with the zip-up cooler, and take it home to eat with my mom. My bike ride was a slog. I can taste the haze as I breathe in both spring-laden pollen air and whatever else made Philadelphia’s tall buildings difficult to see earlier today. I put on sunglasses to see if I could hide my red eyes and snotty nose under them, but they are polarized and I cannot see the screen as I wear them.
I had a wonderfully connected conversation with my brother as I drove to the airport today about logistic curves and the necessity of the recognition of the transience of exponential growth in systems that have metabolisms and use energy. My shoulder is sore from carrying my bicycle over the top of a ridgeline. The sound of the river going over the dam behind me is calming me down, in a way a self fulfilling prophecy as I wrote that sentence (this sentence). Spring in the Garden State. And it’s late in the day in May. And by that I mean April. But it is, in fact, late in the day in April. So the plot does experience the realities of time. Not every day could be a morning in April, even though I have been quite content on these April mornings. There are two ice cream places within two hundred yards of where I am sitting, I’ll have to do a little bit of research before I determine which to grab the chocolate soft serve and perhaps a coffee ice cream. Something about coffee ice cream – it must be the coffee – that makes it feel like I’m not eating ice cream, but instead duplicating the only good reason to go to sleep (the first cup of coffee in the morning). Imagining a time when I didn’t have that to look forward to as I jumped out of bed makes me wonder at how I ever made it out of bed. It’s a mystery of the human body.
I’ve been writing on these Zoom calls with hundreds of people, many of whom have their video on, all of whom are muted. I’m trying to replicate the effect of these group writing sessions by setting myself a timer and sitting myself near people. In a way, I like this more, because the people I am near are doing so many things besides just writing. I’m inspired by the facial expressions of the ice cream eating bench sitters leaning toward each other while they casually spoon their decidedly not coffee ice cream. I see the trucker hat wearing man sitting with the heels wearing woman, and he looks very interested in the story she is telling, though the crossed hands across his belly and tapping foot indicate that he may be waiting for something that he will just barely have the patience for. Also, on these writing Zoom calls, no one bikes up next to you and asks you about your bike and tells you stories about their bike camping and “stealthing” (those are cool quotes around a well-wielded word); good to meet you too, Warren. But the timer was running while we talked, so this chapter will be a little shorter than it might have been. Because I have to pick the ice cream shop, get the to-go containers, and scurry homeward.
I’ve been finding my way around myself with a little more calm and a lot more forgiveness lately. My soreness has been a bit bothersome, but I ate a little extra venison to protein-ify (I don’t know anything about nutrition) and my allergies to springtime have a been a little bothersome and I’ve embraced (as much as one can a sneezing, constant nose-blowing, which is rather a lot to embrace). These physical sensations bring me into the moment and make the future and the past pale in comparison to the physical reality of the present. I’m concerned that my nose is running to the point that passers by will consider that my allergies must be a sign of the pandemic. My fully gestated vaccine suggests probably not, and the symptoms do not match in the least. So here I sit, watching the world and its tattoo sleeves stroll by carrying iced lattes.
Commas are an incredible mark. They can be a pause and they can be a required bit of reading. They might indicate the passage of time or the order of the world. They might set off a sentence that could have stood on its own. And they might be used for the rhythm of it, rather than for the necessity of it.
It’s interesting to see the way some people amble with their hands in their pockets. It’s as though the hands are keeping the hips stationary so that the head and feet can waggle without moving one forward very much. Children wander by, some excited and patient, others with their eyebrows furrowed, intent on whatever is meant to come next. Just wait until you have some allergies, children. You’ll calm down and look forward to June. Because it’s still the end of April. Just wanted to confirm, after that confusion earlier about May. For may it be thus one day hence; yet not until; said month commence. Semicolons are the most beautiful punctuation. The dot is a hat, worn delicately by the comma, indicating its seriousness of professional and fashionable purpose. The hat is so doffed as to appear to be floating, and in many senses it does float. And the lycra’d cyclist wields his beard across the street. I do miss my fellow writers, but randomly evening ambling humanity is a beautiful alternative. And the dam and the river makes most of their speech unintelligible. The bearded dog crosses, looking like the little girl who would have been excited by whatever the next thing might have been, but not too excited to run away.
The Pilgrim at Tinker Creek has affected me. The gait and rhythm of my writing is influenced by the examination of the many moralities of insects, the intent of a creek, and the realities of newts & salamanders. I do not look into the eyes of a baby-carrying man who seems to be arguing with a woman; I do not wish to be the redirected destination for the frustration as he straps the baby in and prepares to drive somewhere. I’m grateful that they will be moving their car, unblocking my view of a large section of the street.
I feel as though I’m delaying my return journey to the house. My allergies do not flow directly into my eyeballs and sinusoidal corridors while I’m seated, even as yellow dust continues to accumulate on my laptop and I continue to sneeze in ways that disgust the passers by (insofar as they turn their heads away and walk purposefully toward the bridge. I expect I am hurting the business of the coffee shop whose entrance I’m guarding with my tearful, red eyes. But hopefully the barista inside appreciates the break.
I wonder about the snapshots of the present. How can I become more absorbed by them? Is this safe to do when I’m going 20 miles per hour down a hill on my bicycle? What about closing my eyes while I’m riding my bicycle? Sometimes I do this for several seconds, trying to echo-locate like the best of the bats I’ve seen reeling around. But I think if one of these bats had been riding a bicycle, she would have crashed it. I’m going back into the coffee shop to get a napkin to vigorously blow my nose into. Perhaps two of them.
Success. And my laptop was still here when I returned. But then I do like to live dangerously. It will be time to pedal through the haze back toward home quite soon. My forty six minute timer has not even run out yet. Perhaps I do need the motivation of other writers. But I won’t count the words, because as everyone but the economists seem to get, this is not a numbers game.
I saw a movie yesterday that made me feel like I was seeing the type of friendships which are my favorite, those which are perpetual and ask very little, yet give willingly.
Now I must choose what type of ice cream I will eat. I must see the options first. I must make the journey home. The difficulty ascending the hills on the way to this seat in front of the coffee shop with the wiffie and the mango smoothie and additional water brings a pleasant anticipation into my muscles for the journey home. It’s a journey home, just the plane flights home from Washington, DC, (obligatory comma, I still remember the grammar exercises) where I was attending college were journeys home. The feeling of the pilot throttling up and pulling back the yoke will always be one of the most pleasant, because I’ve just finished my final exams (all of which I wrote the night before or did not study for) and I won’t have to think about obligations, beyond the familial and Midwestern, for weeks or months. Onward (or perhaps sideways) to pollen ingestion, a mystery ice cream, and one pedal up while the other goes down.
Roman Ryan 