WEEKLY WRITER'S PATH #18
I wasn’t feeling very happy, even though my clients reiterated my good job “as always,” and my business consultants pointed out my “exemplary resume,” and my creative collaborator liked both web designs I showed him so much he couldn’t choose between them. Ron, my compañero, says happiness isn’t the point.
I made a final Friday afternoon phone call to a newspaper to pick up a last-minute ad for Monday’s deadline and their line was busy. Being without an office in town, I drove towards the nearest south side free internet coffeehouse. But in the middle of traffic I got through to the ad rep and confirmed the placement. Suddenly I was done for the week. I was at a loss as to what I should do next, so I turned around and drove to my dream office (the downstairs corner studio at the Lofts) and parked out front, like a stalker.
I was glad to see that it was still empty, though the leasing agent told me yesterday there were some people looking at it. The rose bushes out front have leafed out and I recognized a Russian sage in front of the windows. I counted seven aspen and wondered how long they would last on the south side of the building in full summer sun. I got out and walked past the office, looking for any signs of future inhabitation. The bird’s nest in the light over the front door was cleaned out. A stray plastic bag was caught in the bushes and I pulled it away. I walked through the courtyard of the other buildings, much more lush and community-feeling than my on-the-street sunny office. For once I considered the possibility of a different office, that there could be a better option if 714F was rented.
I drove the back road to Borders to indulge myself in a latte and a chocolate biscotti. Sitting at the only clear table I was directly across from the latest Sports Illustrated cover, the one with 12 models in white bikini bottoms. Lined up sideways and close together, they held their hands or arms over their naked breasts. What, I wondered, do men see in this? Yes, physical beauty of one type, but what is in it for them? My femme brain immediately turned the picture around and had 12 guys all so similar you couldn’t tell them apart except for their hair color posed in a tight line on a beach in white string Speedos. Nope. Doesn’t do it for me.
My muse has a field day suggesting a novel based on a photographer who sets up a bikini shoot as the last cheesy shot he ever does. It sickens him so much he sells all his studio gear and keeps one high-end digital camera, books himself on a flight to record the refugees from Darfur and becomes embroiled in a death-plot, miraculously escaping with his life and a kidnapped peace activist.
Oh, shut up, I tell my muse, leaving the table to stroll through the aisles of books. If I buy you a book will you leave me alone?
No, not a political book, she whines as I pick up Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. How about another book from that Girl with a Pearl Earring writer? Her last name started with a “C” and I walk over to the fiction.
As I look down the rows of books, I see an ambulance out the window, lights flashing, an orange motorcycle on its side in the street. I stand behind two people who say the accident just happened. I am mesmerized by how clean the store window is: not a spot on it, and how big it is: fully five feet across, and how the frame is painted red: matching the trim of the ambulance. The scene outside is completely silent from inside. There are officers walking around and medics with blue plastic gloves taking a stretcher out of the back doors, the legs expanding so the wheels hit the asphalt. Cars stream by in the two remaining lanes, so many of them shiny SUVs.
Soon a fire truck appears, blocking the turned over bike, and reinforcing the red color on the ambulance and the window frame. It is too pretty a picture. I am thinking about Ron’s accident on March 1. Were their flashing lights? Gawkers? I remember he said he first realized the enormity of what had happened to him when they had him on the stretcher ready to go to the hospital for tests.
A tall man with a black hat and silver hatband, black jeans and scuffed boots walks into the frame, watching the scene. The medics are blocked by the fire truck, lifting someone onto a stretcher. A pedestrian is given a thick jacket with logo “rockers” in gold to carry. They wheel the injured man into the back. There is no red blood on him or the blanket covering him.
I turn away from the window. On the endcap of the aisle is a book cover with eyes staring at me. It is the Dalai Lama. He isn’t smiling, exactly, but his mouth is open just a little, mirroring mine, like we had just bumped into each other. The title is, The Art of Happiness. I know a sign when I see it. I pick up the book, find an unoccupied chair and read the introduction.
But I can’t concentrate. Salesmen make jokes and teenagers pass curse words back and forth. I need a library, an office. I have an economic fight with myself to buy either the femme book or the religious book. I don’t win. I decide to be reckless and get both, plus a new journal.
At the cash register, the sales girl asks if I have a coupon. Oh, I do, but not for today, I sigh. She gives me a 30% discount anyway and I have to ask her why. Because you didn’t have yours for today, she says simply. That’s very nice of you, I remark. When I look at my receipt later I am amused: “Art of Happiness, 30% coupon.”
I sit in my car which is facing Cerrillos Road and watch as police hold back traffic with their hands and use their chalk wheel to gauge the accident site. I also notice for the first time a brown pickup and the dent in its driver’s side door. And the driver, a skinny kid with a long tan sweater talking on his cell phone.
I call home and tell Ron I am not in a good mood and that I don’t want to come home and take it out on everyone. He hesitates but says OK. I drive north to finish my banking at the ATM and look up at the hills. The sky is getting dark, but the clouds are moving away and there is snow in the hills. Real snow. Real close. I drive north. My muse jumps up and down with delight. Be quiet back there, I demand.
At first the road is wet and steaming on the way up to the ski basin. The willow and elms give way to rock walls and canyons of ponderosa pine. The scant white dusting turns into mild slush and not long after, heavy boughs hung with white. So recent: fresh, clean snow. I imagine putting my face into the snow, rolling in it, eating it. Maybe this is the feeling men have when looking at women in bikinis: Mine! All mine!
I drive higher and higher. Ahead of me is an ugly pickup spray-painted flat black. We drop gears and snake around curves. I think I will make it up to Aspen Vista, but there may not be enough pine boughs to stand under and shake. The light is fading and the few cars coming down are negotiating the incline slowly. Behind me the bit of sky between clouds is rosy pink. I decide to pull off at the next turn around and then miss it. Next one, I say.
I see it up ahead, slow down into first and look around before pulling off. I cut the engine and lights, open the door and step down into deep snow. I scrunch around to the edge of the turn-off and throw myself down the hill, running through drifts, falling and rolling, eating handfuls of snow from branches, shaking snow down my neck, washing my face in snow, whooping with cold.
I wander through the trees, no animal tracks, just me. I start to worry about finding my way back then laugh: there are my tracks, clear in the blue-white, black-white, serene snow. Under my boot tracks the rich black earth crumbles like double-chocolate cake under wedding-white icing.
I come to the edge of a steep cliff and look down. I look up. So quiet. Pines don’t get excited over snow. I sigh with deep contentment. I’m as happy as Augustus Gloop at the chocolate waterfall. Ha, there’s that word: happy.
