The last time I painted the outside of my house, it took me a year-and-a-half to complete the project. Every two weeks I would scrape, prime and paint a twelve-foot section of the walls and trim. I started at the front of the house, the most visible part that the neighbors would see. Failure to complete the project would be hidden from their view.
Not so long ago, there was a another kind of wall, the notorious Berlin Wall, dividing Germany into two pieces.
The first time I crossed into East Germany, I entered through Checkpoint Charlie, the American military passage leading through that great, foreboding wall that split friends and family apart. Many from the East died while attempting to cross that monstrous concrete bulwark.
The second time I encountered the Wall, Communist East Germany was breathing its last. The Wall was being properly and deservedly defaced; it was ablaze with colorful paintings and slogans of soon-coming freedom. Incredulously, the demise of The Wall had become a celebration of life, an invitation of hope and of promise.
Walls have a purpose, whether good, or whether bad. I don’t always get to choose the walls in my life. But perhaps choosing how I paint them is the next best thing.
The leaves and other tree droppings have permanently etched brown stains into her once-handsome skin. Her plastic headlight covers, foggy and scratched, need cataract surgery to restore their illuminating beams. Her tires are well-worn like ancient running shoes. Her running gear has logged nearly 150,000 miles.
In short, she is old, tired and increasingly feeble. She has faithfully served transportation needs for nearly a decade-and-a-half without complaint. If car years track similarly to dog years, she is nearing 98 years old.
Though she is still running, I have been advised to dump our gerontological companion. Possible dangerous behaviors and huge repair bills loom just around the corner. The cost of repairing her now exceeds her dollar value in the used car market.
When she departs my driveway for the last time, she will leave a small stain of oil behind, a reminder of her that will fade with time. She will carry with her the secret stories of our lives. How she carried me and patiently waited for me while I interviewed for a desperately-needed job. When ferrying the family pet to the veterinarian, she never complaining about the scratchy toenails and the fleas it deposited. She faithfully carried vast quantities of weekly groceries, enduring spilled jugs of milk and the sharp spikes of pineapple skin.
Like precious gifts left in the tomb of an ancient pharaoh, she will carry off bits of our lost pocket change hidden in a corner of faded carpeting, and stale gummy bears concealed beneath folds of stained upholstery.
I understand that, in time, the pain over losing our nonagenarian vehicle will pass.
But when the first of the 72 loan installments to pay for her replacement comes due, the memory of losing her will be all the more bittersweet.
I happened by this stairwell walking through a college campus near my home.
I’ve been here before. The restroom at the top of the stairs has on occasion provided me very welcome relief during my two-mile hikes to and from my commuter trains each weekday.
On a previous dark morning visit, I had just taken relief at this facility. At the top of the stairs, I startled a landscape maintenance worker who had expected to encounter nobody else at that early hour. His name is Joe, and now, some two years later, we still eagerly look for each other, encouraging one other to make the best of the day as we pass–me, hiking to the train, and he, riding his tiny orange maintenance vehicle into the dark. By varying our routines by one or two minutes, we will miss one another entirely.
A slight change in schedule would also cause me to miss the tall woman dressed in black who vigorously walks a trail around a small park. If our trajectories coincide, we pass one another at just the right spot, each simultaneously tossing out a good-morning-greeting before plunging back into our individual worlds.
If I leave the house a few minutes earlier or later, I will also miss the woman wearing a fluorescent orange jumpsuit, silently doing her early morning tai chi ballet-like routines while focusing on a water fountain. I’m sure she misses her friends, who are performing their tai chi exercises in the company of other comrades half a word away. I greet her quietly to avoid breaking her concentration and move along.
Similar small early morning webs of interactions between onetime strangers occur around me without my knowledge, all captured in their own world of routine and circumstance, all governed by moments of the clock. Move the hands of the clock slightly, and the world of our relationships change.
Back to the stairway.
For this occasion of my visit, someone had used fishing line to create an intricate geometric pattern by tying each tiny thread to the handrail. The resulting weave created a spider web that continued up the entire height of the stairwell, fastening to the ceiling itself.
I’m guessing college students pulled this off; college students can do weird things. For me, this thing was both a weird and a wonderful thing.
The intricate geometric weave is like the web that surrounds us as we travel to the train and through time. Each strand has a name: Joe, and the tall woman walker dressed in black, the orange jump-suited tai chi-performing woman.
On my next visit to the stairwell, the web was gone. But in the distance, I heard Joe calling my name.
Today is our usual lunch date. After attending church, we head over to the Los Angeles Farmers Market. Cajun blackened red snapper salad is our “go to” favorite lunch by far.
Today was different. Sure, I attended the Sunday service, then headed over to The Market as usual. But I didn’t need a nice table in the shade. I didn’t require the special view of the most interesting people around me. I sat in the sun, fiddling with my iPhone. I even forgot to get our choice treat, a Pinkberry yogurt: small-size original flavor with carob chips, thank you very much.
Today it didn’t matter if I sat in the sun, or which direction I faced because I sat alone. Jackie is in Alabama for the summer, spending time with her father. And I’m jazzed about that. But it sure will be nice when that green chair fills with her presence again.
