Pig Pen

Fortune cookie proverbs, “Fall down seven times, get up eight.” Sound advice. Lovely sentiment. Kiss my ass. I like it down here in the dirt. It's grimy and people are scrambling to move away. The real-estate is cheap. There is no Home Owner's Association knocking on your door wanting dues to be paid. Down here in the dirt nobody cares what the yard looks like.

I like it down here. Which is good, because I'm pretty sure I broke my leg when I fell off my high horse and lost my crown of hypocrisy. Fall down seven times, get up eight. You've got to keep on trying! You're a cute little kitten and you just need to, “Hang in there!” Whatever. This is my dirt. My pockets are full of it and it's under my fingernails. It's in my shoes. I've got mud on my face. I can taste the grit between my teeth. I love it.

Give me your dirt. I'll haul it away for free. I'm going to make mud pies and sell them two for one on Tuesdays. I'm going to take your dirt and plant a flower garden. All you saw was dirt. Grime. In a few months when the petunias start to bloom don't you dare come back around here wanting your dirt back. You will though, and I'm going to go dig through the dirt somebody else left, find a dirt clod, and chuck it at your freshly shampooed head.

From time to time as I've walked my way down the road of my flawed existence there have been people that have seen me stumbling along with my wheelbarrow full of dirt. Some have offered to help. They want to take a shovel and remove some of my dirt. It doesn't work like that. Whatever dirt you remove is going to be sitting right there where you left it waiting to get stuck on someone's shoes and then they're going to track it into the house. Drop the shovel and help me push the wheelbarrow. This is my dirt. I'm keeping it and somewhere along the way there is going to be a pile of dirt that someone else left behind. I'm going to scoop it up with my hands and put it right here on top of my other dirt.

Dirty is the word of the day.

Also, where is your wheelbarrow? Where did you leave your dirt? Are you trying to hide from it? Did you go wash your hands and imagine that all of a sudden you're clean? Give me back my wheelbarrow and go find yours wherever you left it. When you catch back up we will get us a wagon or a dump truck and combine our dirt. Don't you damn dare come back wringing your sanitized hands in a freshly bleached shirt.

Fall down seven times, get up eight. You go ahead. I'm going to stay right down here with the worms, the rocks, and the dirt. I'm going to get grass stains on my jeans and watch the ants crawl across me. I'm going to get all itchy. If you insist that I get back up then I'm going to shake my head and crawl right to your best couch. Scotch Guard ain't got shit on my dirt. The best thing you can do once I crawl back out into the grime is to pull that couch out onto the yard and set it on fire.

When you get tired of washing your hands until they're red and raw, go change out of your school clothes, and you can come on down here with me. Don't forget your dirt, Pig Pen.

Walking with Windmills.

As she walked away he couldn’t stop watching. Her walk was ethereal. It reminded him of being on some dark and lonely country back road with an old friend and catching a glimpse of a falling star through a dusty windshield. It was hope packaged in blue jeans and sitting on the top of heels. Not everybody had a walk like that. Most folks just ambled around from place to place, non-descript and plain. There were no metaphors and absolutely no amount of alliteration that could describe her walk. He felt foolish for even trying to unscramble the words in his brain to make sense of that walk. For him to try and describe that walk was akin to Don Quixote tilting at windmills. He liked to tilt at windmills though.

His head was full of images and words. The paper was laid out in his thoughts like a super sized Scrabble game and he was searching for double word scores. There had to be something he could write down that would make it less ethereal, something that would keep that walk from escaping into the aether. Less ethereal? No, that wouldn’t work; her walk flowed too well with the rotation of the world. She walked along the floor like the trade winds flowed along the equator. Warm and calm.

This was elegance on two legs. This was the word lovely come to life. He had to be dreaming, that was the only thing that could explain how this scene was playing out. It went on forever, and eventually it had to fade to black. There was no option available, after she left the room, but for the curtain to fall. The lights stayed on, the curtain stayed up, the scene was over but the play was not finished. This was a one woman production. Everyone else was simply scenery or part of the crew. Key grips and paper-mache rocks.

He was surely going to go insane if he watched her any longer. This is what purgatory must be like. There she was, sweet as salvation, but just out of reach. Every step he took she took one as well, she kept walking. He wanted to catch her and walk with her, walk beside her and see what wonders might be in her heart. He wanted to just stand still and watch her move along the hardwood like a ghost with purpose. As long as her purpose was to haunt him she could rattle all the chains she wanted.

She opened the door and walked outside. This was not a mode of transportation; a means to get from point A to point B. Her walk was the destination; it was all the places that needed to be reached. He moved, awkwardly towards her, and sat down. He needed to rest. He had taken a step for every one of hers and then one for each of his own. He looked over and realized that it wasn’t just her walk that was a dream, a production worthy of an encore. She sat there, legs crossed, quiet as the space between them, and she was still ethereal and elegant. She was still the destination and the windmill. He watched her quietly; anxiously. He closed his eyes and dreamed of her walk.