ISawArkansas

298

A friend dropped by the other night and said she wanted a cigarette but she doesn’t smoke, yet thought she would like to. There was a several-years’-old half pouch of tobacco in a kitchen drawer – stale and perfect. And who doesn’t have rolling papers?

We went out back and sat looking at the yard and the stars. Crickets, frogs, cicadas, a barn owl, trucks jakebraking down Busch Mountain – it sounded like sixth grade band practice.

We talked about the odd way we’ve become someone else. “You had you when you were born,” she said. “But you spent your life being a kite instead of an anchor. Hippie. Then one day you got you back. It’s like finding a lover who looks at you the way you want to be looked at.”

My turn. “This professional downtown, a man with talent and a brain, maybe, told one of his customers that Perlinda and I are hippie chicks who don’t shave our legs. How does he know and why does he care?”

“Get past that,” she said. I’ve known her long enough that I know she can turn left but be right.

“Older parents coming to live with us,” she said. “Is that their idea or ours? And why? Is something wrong with how they’re living? Is this to avoid the old folks home? Do parents know how much stress they put on their adult children, and vice versa?”

Identifying where responsibility lies is never a solution.

“Yes,” I said. “The first thing we see when we’re born is our mother’s eyes. And that’s when the stress begins. It’s not her fault. All she knows is from her own experience, the same as her mother and the one before that. We don’t stand a chance of being real if all we pay attention to is school, taxes and retirement.”

We moved on.

“Trump is a baby boomer, but not a hippie,” she said. “The man thrives on rage. It makes no sense, kind of like how someone can be active military, yet go to church. What is that? Fear of commitment?”

“Nah. It’s like some people fret that their vote doesn’t count while others believe their vote makes all the difference. Neither is accurate and both are right. I’m far more concerned about the guy who thinks P and I don’t shave our legs.”

Now she wanted a lighter.