I'm looking through you

Where we left off...

Dinner with Mr. Key never happened, as Mr. Key was AWOL, and I left for Wisconsin early. One of the last times I saw him before I left, someone had put an old excercise bike out on the curb for the Wednesday garbage pick-up. Mr. Key propped his cane against a pole, got on the bike and began pedaling serenely. He was still pedaling, a dreamy look on his face, when we walked by again. I look forward to taking Mr. Key to dinner when I get back to Brooklyn. It's his choice where we go. I'll take him anywhere he wants. Maybe we'll dress up a little; I'll wear lipstick and my hair back and he'll wear his best shoes. What will we talk about at dinner? If he'll tell me, I want to hear his story.

With Mr. Key nowhere to be found, I spent the time leading up to my departure on reading, and drinking outside and eating outside and on wandering and riding rollercoasters. Sean Howe and I spent part of an afternoon reading at Barnes and Noble, and started laughing uncontrollably in the cafe as we looked at the pile of ridiculous books I was paging through, all with titles like, _Letting Go When He Leaves_. Some friends I hadn't seen in a while dragged me out of the house and over to Coney Island, where the smell of funnel cake and salt air made me dizzy with the love of summer. I rode the Cyclone five times. And for the first time, I sat in the very front.

And now I'm home in Wisconsin, and it's such a familiar place in the summer that I can't believe I wasn't here last month, or last week. Everything is exactly the way it always is. I only see my family two or three times a year; when I do see them, I can't contain my happiness. I start acting silly. Really silly. This exchange with my Dad was typical of what happens every summer; someone always ends up having to tell me to cut it out.

Me: (singing) Who's walking down the streets of the city, smiling at everybody she sees...
Dad: (reading) Hmmph.
Me: Everyone knows it's WINDY! And Windy has starry eyes...(forgetting lyrics) and Windy has...thunder thighs, and Windy--
Dad: Sarah.
Me: (chanting) It's Windy! It's Windy! It's Windy outside! (picking up dog) And the dog loves the wind! And the wind loves the dog!
Dad: Sarah.
Me: Windy dog! And Windy dog has soft, soft fur, and Windy dog likes to chase birds, and Windy dog--
Dad: SARAH. Settle down and knock it off!

The dog and I walk down to the lake after dinner. The lake is murky and green and stinky and I've been swimming in it as long as I can remember. The smell of it is probably my favorite smell; when I was a kid, there were always little specks of algae in my hair from it. My clothes smelled like it. The air on the soccer fields down the street was heavy with it. Tonight, it was such a relief to see it and smell it that a little laughing sob escapes. Luckily there's no one there to hear it but the dog, and he's busy trying to eat cigarette butts. It feels like the lake looks different every time I see it. Sometimes it's still and green, sometimes gray and cloudy, sometimes it shimmers in the sun. Tonight, it's windy and the water is choppy and dark. Growing up, when we got hot, we would run all the way to the lake sometimes and just run right into it with our clothes, and then walk home dripping. I once left an old boyfriend standing squeamishly on this same little shore, next to the smelly fish skeleton that had dissuaded him from swimming, as I waded out to say hello to neighbors who drag their lawn chairs into the lake, and then sit in them, only their heads and their cans of Old Style out of the water. (They'll probably be in there tomorrow when I go swimming). I see some of these neighbors along my walk. They're out in their yards, and walking around, and fiddling with gardens. Some of them just stand at the end of their driveways, ready to talk to anyone who walks by. It's like a giant, midwestern receiving line. Everyone is still riding high from last night's Packer victory, though it's just a preseason game and doesn't mean anything. I stop to talk to the man who feeds the deer. I'm not sure if we ever met formally, or even who he is. His hands are old and rough and creased with a lifetime of ice fishing seasons and gardening."It's wonderful to see you," he says, and I say, "It's wonderful to see you too." And I mean it.

The Summer Adventure Project will continue tomorrow. Please send any suggestions to hoipollloi@yahoo.com. Submissions are always welcome.

*Typed while listening to my parents watch the Olympics. And the crickets outside.