Roots

I can remember the day as clear as sandpaper. I was five-years old and it was the first day of school for me. Kindergarten to be precise. My mother took me to the bus stop and I remember the sky being a cool and bright white that day. There was a small child about my age waiting at the bus stop with his mother. I had never seen this woman and her child in my life, or at least my young mind could not conceive or re-collect their pale and blue eyes Visage. The woman was so excited to see me and greeted me with a plethora of smiles and words of endearment that only seemed to ad to my confusion. But, nonetheless I remember being very happy, and that is the point of it all. My mother left as soon as the woman escorted her son and myself to our seats on the yellow submarine that seemed so much Grander when I watched my sisters before me ride, than when it was now time for my destiny to start. But nonetheless I was happy, which is the point of it all. The woman's child's name was Jacob and I remember he had an extremely paler complexion than his mother and his eyes were unmistakeably blue. His eyes were kind  but oh so impressionable and I knew even at five years- old that this "Jacob" who never wronged me in his whole life, would not be mine for long. But I was still so happy, and that is the point of it all. His mother told me stories of how Jacob and I would play together and How his mother and my mother had known each other for a  time I, to this day,still  try to remember. The time to fly was upon the world, at least my world, and the woman left, as all mothers do, in that same over-protective but resigned way. Kissing her son goodbye and waving to me and slowly walking out of our lives, for a while at least. But nonetheless I was happy, and that is the point of it all. As the bus slowly made its way to the school of the "Gators" my mind was flooded with the stories of my young friend and I in our youthful glory and even though the images and smells and sounds and senses of that woman's childish tales could not penetrate my mind, the joy of knowing that somewhere in my short  boring  lonely uneventful life a door was being opened, a door that to this day I can not close. My imagination gave way to the things that did not make sense, and suddenly playing in my small brain were montages of two small boys getting into messes in kitchens, and breaking pottery and stupid sweet talk of mothers gabbing on about kids and husbands and the joy of having them. My parents were through with each other by now, but I could make them love one another in my dreams. On my comet I could freeze all discomfort and shoot across the years to a time of water and strawberries and contentment. And everyday as I rode next to Jacob to school, I told new stories filled with unopened remembrances of a time that did not happen, but I wanted to happen. And everyday he would tell me "Gabwiel" for he had trouble with his "R's" "Gabwiel I am tired of talking about the past. I don't remember any of it and I'm tired, just leave me alone". And that was that. The Raconteur within me stopped and patiently waited for the submarine to reach the Bayou. At five years old I understood that all things go and nothing stays,... at five years old. On that first day of school I remember wanting so desperately to connect to another person. This pale Irish blue eyed child who I had no attachment to, except through sacred ceremonial storytelling that made me want to live in the past and recall the time when I did laugh for freedom. How far back does it go? Did I ever have a chance? Did I see some dark and dangerous shadow that scared the innocence out of me the moments I first began to walk? Did the Devil jump out and knock me down when my first words screeched out of my mouth? Or did I become asthmatic waiting in my incubator and that is why I can not breathe for dreaming of my own solitude? Or when my cord was wrapped around my neck, did some snake come to life and choke the normalcy out of my eyes? How far back does it go? I was only five and seeing the dark became the dark. But I grew. My God I grew. I saw the light and I live everyday to see it and grab it and kiss its photons. When I finally do I will weep for happiness and I will no longer need to make up dreams of reality that mix together with the centrifugal force of a young boy's heart hitting life's brutal windshield and crashing through the years stumbling and weeping and gnashing and spending nights oh so lonely and frightened. I am still scared. Shaking for reasons I do not know. Perhaps because the night before I smiled and danced and sang with friends and such happiness is to good for me. I do not know. I only know that when I was five and rode that yellow submarine to school, I was happy for a time, and that is the point of it all.