Ya know when I got home the other night I wondered of where I had been. I knew that I had been at PetSmart finding a 12 pack of Savory Centers for Bella and Cricket to satisfy that bad cat dad particular food forgotten that gets me back into good cat graces, I was at Stop and Shop for what turned out to be their last bag of that new litter that works for the both of them, not the clumping stuff any longer that most probably has some toxic elements, cracked pine kitty litter that smells of old trees and adventures, I grabbed some Steve stuff.
But I wondered of where I had been and how I got here. Spud the Orange and Lumpy and even Penny of the 6 third bay cats welcoming me home in a slow rush from that third bay garage to a pet at my hip while the dogs clamored inside and out front at the hearing of a car pull up.
I was at Subway where they wouldn’t take my coupon and then at Adams where that lack of that Subway coupon cost me quite a few dollars per pound and Moms and Dads sat with their kids in an open air Summer ice cream dream, where my open windowed sing along with the new Rave-Ups, 32 years later, almost as if they never left, took a moment’s pause at a turn of a key and a step out of the car though still lingering singing in my head.
I wondered of where I had been back in a Rave-Ups glory day being all mid 80’s and she took a moment to size me up wondering of a what could have been before it even started.
I sat on the edge of the bed while Mom cradled with soft hard words how my broken heart could manage going back to school one more time after realizing Jay was right next Summer door just graduated. She was right there in a local town with a name I knew. … but no longer knew me.
I wondered of where I had been.
I asked Emily across a long bed if I could just sleep for a little while longer, it was a gloriously long bed.
I asked if I could just lay for a moment.
I miss that.
It was 1989 and I was being all 1989 post fire my shorts and some shitty t-shrts being pretty much all I had left but comfy for a moment.
I wondered of where I had been Fil letting me bartend at his rock and roll place being all 1993 and that too large Miami ‘M’ U baseball hat behind the bar, the only one I ever wore that wasn’t Black & Gold. It was just a good hat that sat just right, no affinity for U of Miami. You just always hold onto and wear hats that sit just right no matter how you came about them, even if they weren’t Black & Gold. They’re hard to find abut easy to live in once you do.
I started my paper route being all 1975 at that begins right at Putnam County Golf course’s driveway to run along Hill Street down to Bullet Hole Road and a few houses past, and the fanciest of bike as I remember, well, as fancy as a bike could get then that let you deliver newspapers when newspapers still got delivered by 11 year olds in an idyllic way. It had a basket. I loved that basket. It held stuff more than just the papers.
I wondered of where I had been.
I wondered of a comfy bed and sheets I didn’t even want to sleep on or under at Brian’s perfectly clean meticulous Pittsburgh place when I crashed there on Friday and Saturdays during the day (still living in West Virginia at that moment) with my first real gig the imposition enough to make me want to just lay on top until a radio overnight called being all 1991.
I pretty much moved into the attic away from Maria and Jagger and the Jackson and Brady pups and my passed dear Shana Girl knowing that it was only a matter of time. But there were cats and I was all 2012 with a sad knowing slide upstairs.
I sat in a bathtub in that railroad apartment in Dayton OH and cried while Merlin tapped at my face, being all 1996, showing Benny how to do it just in case I sat for a second or third or umpteenth time at the thoughts of my marriage being done. The learning.
I wondered of any year (s) while I built sound with my voice in tow at a 50,000 watt Hudson Valley radio station to remind that I wonder of such wonderings of where Mom is now, in her head, of any year (s), no cradling of broken hearts and soft hard words to tell me to buck up now but maybe with a still fleeting recognition of that voice.
I got all 2022, Spring/Summer and wondered where I’d been as Beck and I drove home along faintly remembered teenaged roads, shortcuts, though shortcuts to what I couldn’t tell ya any longer, just excuses to drive, but maybe just that, shortcuts, away from Mom’s new spot, that came out to remembered places, unlike Mom’s no longer remembrances now, the site of old Rodack’s and sandwiches post Church, a sort of reward for having to endure Church, with tomato and mayo and salt and pepper and a coke, even past old homes on a paperboy’s route where Mom was Mom waiting when done and Dad held her close.
I wondered of wondering, wandering, wondering and wondered of …
… jumbled things. I jumble things, jumble things, get things all in a jumble here wondering of where I’ve been though, as a lifelonger best of mine, Lori, mentioned at a draft of this, it’s not even so much the jumble of where I’d been but how did I, how did we, get here?
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