Friends & Neighbors
Tiger Rain
Her umbrella was filled with rain she had collected in her travels & on hot summer days she would open it up for the neighborhood kids & we would splash in the puddles & then it would smell like Nairobi or Tasmania & later on we would sit on the porch & eat ice cream & watch for tigers in the bushes.
The World Itself
When she held out her arms, the world itself wrapped around me & held me tight.
Tell The Truth
It would be easier if I just told the truth, he said, but I wasn’t there for a lot of it
Strange Plant
I have a friend who found a strange plant in her garden one day & she watered it for three months & still wasn’t sure it was a vegetable. Her sister was a nurse & said she knew how she felt.
Street Signs
These are all the street signs for this area but he keeps moving them around at night so the only people who aren’t lost all the time are the children who never pay attention to signs anyway.
Stress Management
I can imagine it working out perfectly, I said. I can’t, she said & I said no wonder you’re so stressed.
Standards
Won’t drink a cheap red no matter how much they threaten him.
Soccer Coach
There are about a hundred good reasons why no sane person would ever coach soccer, he told me on the drive home, but I forget most of them when I’m on my meds & then we laughed wildly in the bright spring air.
Slow Pitch
How’re you doing? I said & he said we’re undefeated in our appreciation of the game. That’s against incredible odds, he added.
Small Town
Everywhere’s a small town, she said, if you do something that bothers enough people.
Small World
We sat in the car & the night dropped down until the only sounds were the crickets & the dance of our voices & for a moment the world became small enough to roll back & forth between us.
Simple Rules
I learned 2 things early on, my sister said. The first is don’t blame people for being the way they are. What’s the second? I said. She smiled. If they’re really stupid she said, go ahead & blame them. It’s a really simple philosophy, she added.
Silly in Public
I figured out that if I keep it up, someday I’ll probably get wise enough to be silly in public but I probably won’t wait that long.
Short Pants
He wore the devil costume at every opportunity even though the pants were too short & could never understand why no one would take him seriously.
Side by Side
We sat side by side in the morning light & looked out at the future together.
Secret Notes
He wrote secret notes to people he hadn’t met yet. Some of them aren’t even born, he said, but we live in a strange neighborhood & they will need help figuring things out & I won’t always be around to explain it to them.
Secret Warning
He ran quickly with a sound like raindrops & left his handwriting in all the secret places. I found this one underneath the big yellow rock in the garden. It said this: watch out for the little black dog. It can smell when you’ve had hot dogs.
Roughage
I used to eat popcorn for every meal, she told me once. It made me feel like I was in the movies & my life would turn out happy in the end. Did it work? I said. I don’t know, she said, but I like to think the roughage counts for something.
Run Proud
He taught me to run high on my toes. I will always remember his words: run proud & remember you are alive.
Right Answer
What would it take for world peace? I said. Is there a right answer? he said. No, I said. Oh good, he said. I thought this was going to be one of your love-your-little-brother talks.