At 13, 14, 15, 16, I was so angry at my father. I remember screaming fights with him. My anger hurled out of me, electric, anguished. I didn’t like what he said, did, didn’t do. He didn’t like what I said, did, didn’t do. I remember breaking things. I slammed something- I think it was my bicycle though why my bicycle would be inside I don’t know- into some piece of furniture we had in the narrow foyer that connected the small apartment’s two front rooms to its two back rooms. The bicycle handle hit the glass and the glass shattered. I remember kicking on the screen door so hard the metal folded in, ruined. I remember telling him that if he died right then I would spit on his body. He said something dismissive in return. People said I looked like him. That made it worse. Thinking about that anger now, there’s some part of that 13-year-old I miss. The intensity, maybe, along with the hope that, somehow, the anger would turn out to be productive. He passed away eleven years ago. The photo was taken in West Virginia or Tennessee. I came upon the odd construction and wondered about its purpose, even as I found grace there.
What is it about doorways? Is it the liminal that attracts? The threshold, with its doubled promise of access and escape? Or is it the doors themselves, the way they ride on hinges and respond to our touch? We expect that doors lead to something. We expect that by passing through doorways we have accomplished something. We arrive at or depart from a dinner party, a hotel, a restaurant, the home of a beloved friend or family member, the workplace, our own quietly familiar room. Through doors we enter or leave museums, theaters, the supermarket. Cars and buses and taxis have doors, as do airplanes and trains. Refrigerators have doors. We can lock doors or leave them open. We can slam them shut, or holding our breath close them oh so softly. I took this photo years ago in Rhode Island. The building loomed before me and I was attracted by the quirky absurdity of its three doors’ placement relative to one another and the street. Now I’m struck by what’s missing, and by the silence of inaccessibility.
I'm fascinated by the fact that people are born in Florida, grow up there beneath the hot relentless sun, go to school, the supermarket, sports events. They graduate, marry, birth more like them, work, play, sleep. Over the years I was there as visitor or guest, I saw alarming things: a strawberry field razed for a condo cluster with 9 hole private golf course; a tomato field razed for a condo cluster with 9 hole private golf course; an orange grove, razed for a condo cluster with golf course. Paved six lane, two way, traffic lighted roads connect the clusters, behemoths with competing mega-drugstores alurk at every corner. On side roads I saw pawn shops, gun shops, strip clubs, coin-op laundromats, more proof of real people living real lives. Florida once housed the most diverse ecosystem in the contiguous United States. With a little digging, I discovered pockets of used-to-be. Pelicans; herons; egrets; tiny lizards flicking in and out of view like tongues; mangroves root-walking in swamps; palm trees like manacled cheerleaders; flowers too numerous to mention; alligators; dolphins; manatees; sand dollars, scotch bonnets, turkey wings, baby’s ears, mossy arks, augers, angel wings, false angel wings, ribbed cantharus, channeled duck clam, smoothduck clam, calico clam, atlantic giant cockle, broad paper cockle, horse conch, fighting conch, alphabet cone, dusky cone, paper fig, jingle shell, kitten’s paw, ladder horn, striped false limpet, keyhole limpet, marginella, calico scallop, flat zigzag scallop, banded tulip, lightning whelk. I looked these up. I have held every one of them in my own two hands, many on a single dusk beach stroll. The ravaged fight back. The photo was taken on the West Coast.
Dreams used to come to me in which I was running so fast my feet did not touch the ground. Those dreams persisted well into adulthood. Sometimes it was nighttime. The streets were city streets, usually mostly deserted. Sometimes there were stairways, the kind you would find at one end of a small building. Always I was going down, not touching a single tread, landing with a sure thud at the bottom, shooting around for the next flight, then out onto the street. In fifth grade, we did timed racing in the fenced-in courtyard of our little red brick elementary school. Fifty yard dash. One morning, my gym teacher, whose name I don’t remember, asked me to run it again. He thought maybe his stopwatch was broken, he said. It seems I was fast. Where was I going in those dreams? Nowhere in particular, I don’t think. I just loved the speed, and that fine, unfettered sensation of absolute freedom. The photos in the contact sheet were taken in New Mexico, somewhere near Albuquerque. I loved New Mexico the instant I arrived there. How do we know if we’ve left a place too quickly? What would it cost to return?
My seventh grade English teacher, Mr. Levy, was a white man in his early thirties. I recall very dark curly hair, thick glasses, a white button-down shirt, a plain tie, and deep blue trousers. He dressed the same way every day, I think, but that might be a trick of memory’s wanting everything to be easier than it was. Mr. Levy was in charge of the school paper, a print monthly with articles about fashion, poetry, school news, and sometimes, interviews. Some of my friends and I were editors and writers for the paper. One day, there was the opportunity for a few of us to go to Manhattan to interview a relatively new, up and coming film director. When I wasn’t trying to change the world, believing that, with the help of my friends, change was possible, I battled nerves, bent over the toilet in the small bathroom in our apartment. The world was messy; my family was messed up. The morning of the trip, I got cold feet. I don’t recall why. All I know is I told my mother I had a stomach ache and she let me stay home. Someone else got to do the interview, which is why today’s entry has no accompanying photo of Woody Allen and me.
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