.
If I wasn't feeling lousy when I rode here, then by the time I got done with two police officers here debating the semantics of where the train station starts and ends, and where I stopped cycling to avoid a fine, did the trick.
Feel lousy, but dodged the fine. Think it's easier to talk a cop down now that I'm older than most of these constables you'll meet out on street patrol. I can 'speak with authority when questioning it' but my insides still churn while I'm doing it.I'm numb, and this weekend has driven reasons to be happy in and out of me like an air exchange under my breath. Spent the afternoon with my family, sat for the last half hour before I left watching my father playing Monopoly with his two grandchildren.
He can laugh. I tell you he laughs, animated and bright in a way I never saw myself when I was the childrens' age. That jovial spirit, he was never this lively before my niece and nephew came along. Was that sense of play always there under his gruff and cynical surface? I'd like to think so.
Like when I play with a cat, rubbing noses and dangling string, and wanting that part of me out front all the time. It would be a great way to operate in the world, all the time.
Except for when dealing with cops trying to impose on you, then I need to be as intimidating and assertively confident as I possible. I can do that.
I like making peace but also like standing up for myself. I wish I had a cat to pat right now, wished I'd joined in that instead Monopoly game instead of just watching to the side having a beer quietly. I sat there the way my Dad would've when he was, say, the age I am now. I'm still uneasy around young kids, like they'll see what an emotional fraud I am. The way cats do.
I wonder if, or where I can cross over into that more playful territory. Instead of standing of standing my ground at a train station, debating boundary lines here, out in the cold.
No comments:
Post a Comment