Wednesday January 21, 2004

fresh socks and the congo

That’s him over there, Virginia boy who smells like socks, not old worn ones but fresh ones, just purchased, it’s a rare smell that not many of us know of, but those who do cherish it, cause you know the socks have been through a lot before getting to you, but never yet on someone’s feet, they’ve been in boxes and crates and driven by or flown by plane all over the world, they have been places and seen things that only brand new socks can see, and yet he’s still pure and soft and you can’t decide whether to wash them or immediately wear them, on and certainly he has no fear of getting dirty and playing in the creek, that is his design, his job, to run and play in mud and rain.

Have you ever body surfed a hurricane? I have. Complete loss of body control, you flail and try to swim and ride the surface waves but all you do is get sucked under and then sucked up and flung aside and inside. He wanted to ride the waves, and I had no arguments against it, certainly it looked dangerous, but even more so it looked like the best roller coaster ever made. So we dove out into the cold rocking waves, ten feet high and green with destruction, tossing our invincible bodies across the foam, almost lost my swim trunks, grabbed on tightly, heard him yell something about a cowboy and saw his arm flail above my head, the wave taking us both ashore and out to sea.

I don’t care how late it is, I am heading out of this place and running down the beach to that bonfire party in the distance, they are already there, he found shore sooner than I, his whole family is like that, quick and decisive, always finding the adventure before others are even ready to be awake and about. The kid laughs at the morning news and eats spaghetti for breakfast, his laundry gets mixed with his brothers and they each have their own toilet paper they take to and from the bathroom, and they while they mix and match t-shirts and jeans.

You wouldn’t think it, but the kid loves cats, not just kittens, everybody loves kittens, I mean how can you not, but this kid loves cats, the fat ones, the ones that never leave the house, the ones that whine when you are sitting in their spot on the couch, the cats who stare at their food bowl until you feel sorry for them and feed them, the cats whose exercise is walking to the water dish. Maybe that is because he is very much like those cats, not totally but partially, he will sit around and waste an entire day in front of the television, laughing and joking with the commercials and shows, talking on the phone with other friends while I am over on the couch and he’s in the reclining chair.

But that is how we live, we don’t care where and why and when and who, and never think of how, we just are where we are, hanging out and laughing at the simple things and talking nonsense and playing made up games, interrupting the other person’s thoughts and sentences and retelling jokes and stories we each know word for word. Listening to music, loudly, and having the television on sports while playing video games and eating chips and salsa, debating whether to go putt-putt or go on a hapless crusade. See we have these adventures doing everyday things, if your mind thinks it’s on an adventure than it will become that, searching through the racks at Hecht’s is more exciting when the Nazi’s are hunting you down with space-monkeys doped up on cocaine and tylenol. But not if they catch you.

So when we make that decision to make pasta at three am and sing to Michael Jackson’s Thiller and discuss the current state of politics in the Congo, that is when I am reminded that he smells like brand new socks, and I throw my old ones at his face.