Real Pretend Sparks  

By Timothy Anderson

"Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and live like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable."

--Helen Keller

~ ~ ~

To Matthew Oryschyn, for the wisdom of his vision.

The rockets took shape. The space shuttle followed. Soon an ice cream nebula and bright stars sparkled under a July sun. Chalk and pastels littered the ground. Watching the two small boys working harmoniously with their father Danny, I marveled as shapes formed and colors dazzled. Beside me, three-year old, soon to be four, Matthew repeated endlessly in his singsong voice, "Real pretend sparks."

Real.

Pretend.

Sparks.

The words hung suspended in my mind, unregistered until almost by accident, they caught my attention. For an unknown reason, I focused and paused to listen as Matt's small fingers touched the pavement and he drew lines that intermittently exploded in chaos. I listened to his cadence. "Real. Pretend. Sparks." Over and over again, Matthew's chant became the rhythm to which I added my own contributions to the mural. Scrawling in bright colors, "The Imagination of Space," the intensity of their vision became my own. Finally I could tolerate my crouched position no more and stood to rest my aching knees.

Sidewalk art contests are serious business. Especially for the “no boundaries” types who make the annual pilgrimage to the “da Vinci Days” festival held each July in Corvallis, Oregon.

Starting our mural long after the other contestants in the family division finished, we raced to completion, overwhelmed with our vision, scrambling to get our drawings finished before the judging commenced. Danny kept looking up and smiling at me. As much as Danny and I tried to control the direction of our art, the boys turned and twisted our designated sidewalk square in ways that we could only helplessly follow, their ambition stomping on our adult inhibitions. The boys channeled their divine muse without any prompting. This was their wave to ride and we were only there to make sure things didn't get out of hand.

Danny shrugged as small feet trudged through finished areas. Colors appeared and disappeared, lines smudged, and the territory marked out by the two boys became guarded and at times fought over. Passersby couldn't help but stop and watch so much energy visited upon the defenseless concrete sidewalk.

As Danny watched his boys’ efforts, I watched Danny. Offering his friendship without prejudice, Danny is genuine and unassuming. I met him in high school when he and my friend Laura started dating. With my skeptical ringside seat, I watched as first their love blossomed, then became storybook, resembling at times a better-than-life fairy tale. Eventually those soaring feelings resulted in marriage. But no matter what transition or institutions defined their union, they remained amazing people with generous and gentle spirits. Over the years, our lives have bumped onward, occasionally colliding and intersecting. To stand back and account for all this time is to acknowledge the power of such unions. Individually and in unison, each holds up the sacred miracles and disappointments of life, offering reassuring stability in the process. Danny and Laura's love remains, weathering time, a calm witness securing them against the unknown.

~ ~ ~

We had reconnected in Oregon for our 20th high school reunion. A moment of undeniable justice, the magnetic pull of this gathering was something at first to deny, then acknowledge, and finally to surrender to. After two decades, we the West Albany High School Bulldogs convened to take stock. Here was our moment to settle scores, find inner healing, and hopefully get past all the injustices that were easily summed up in two simple words. High. School.

With some misgivings, I opted in, signing up for participation in a trip backward in time. Claiming our right to this ritual, while at the same time distancing ourselves from a past none of us could change, seemed overly optimistic. Although I knew that for some this pilgrimage to the Mecca of Albany was a destination in itself, in my case it was something different.

That's right. I was beyond all this foolishness. I only came because I needed something to write about.

I told myself I no longer cared what my classmates thought. I wasn't still looking for acceptance and acknowledgment or seeking affirmation. For I, Timothy J. Anderson, was beyond such pettiness. Holding endless measures of clinical objectivity, I stood above this frightening and artificial joining of comparative histories.

Of course, that version is pretty much hogwash. I was lying my fool ass off. I mean we spin these things to ourselves don't we? We package it up, dress it nice, insulating our insecurities, and then we step out of our just washed and waxed vehicles, approaching our now foreign histories with a tenuous grip that not even a lifetime of soaking in Palmolive can cure. The telltale history, the rehearsed lines and the scarred skins can't be hidden.

I can admit it now, after six long months of reflection; I cared. But at the time, after 20 stinking years, I didn't want to acknowledge this horrible reality. That I, Mr. “been there, done that,” still donated valuable thought energy to the good people of West Albany High School. Pathetically, I unconsciously worried what pain this collection of personalities I hadn't seen in 20 years still had left to inflict on me. Worse yet, I knew that my fellow Bulldogs could still see right through all my defenses. They knew that beneath my practiced objectivity, I still cared. They continued to have power over me. That's right. Power. Their opinions could potentially devastate, humiliate, and make me beg for mercy.

Say goodbye to the surprisingly shallow alpha male status of nearly two decades of trucking provided. Gone was the now familiar Type-A personality so carefully constructed and reinforced. I mean I could talk about logging accidents and overweight B Train axles until I was blue in the face, but I was still that kid. The one bringing newborn foals to "show and tell."

The memories aren't all that golden. This isn't Hallmark. In the right environment I remain the same shy, always apologetic, mumbling kid. An uncertain boy, one who maybe still doesn't have enough guts to stand up for himself. So what if a little horse shit remained on Oak Grove Elementary School's playground after "show and tell?" I mean, horses shit. It happens. We were all farm kids, what was the big deal? Yet I said nothing when some of that horse shit, still mysteriously warm, made an appearance in my school lunch. I'd probably do the same again today if it landed in my beer.

I got by with a strategy of disengagement. I drew my way out of challenges, pen and ink sketches detailing endless scenes of mountain cabins, a refuge from my storm. I avoided PE classes by drawing pictures for the coaches. They understood that without peripheral vision I could not master the rings in gymnastics. They encouraged me to utilize those talents I could master.

Up until the end of junior high, my nickname was Silent Messenger. I never spoke. Unless we're talking about the grand, captivating speeches and amazing singing I delivered to a safe and entirely forced audience of horses. Those poor animals. I see them even now, enduring and trapped while waiting to be fed. As I did my chores, they listened attentively to my rallying cry against the Ford, Carter, and Reagan administrations. They heard my rants against the wealthy. They also learned that armies of 9th graders from North Albany Junior High were poised to launch us right back into the dark ages. Only I was brave enough to fight for the crumbling world of middle youth and save the world. The chorus of bobbing heads, impatient for grain, lent me a sense of approval, if not artificial confidence. I had the attention of 1,200 pound animals who respected me. Surely my classmates would follow. Yeah, whatever.

High school, now that was different. I changed. Artificially distancing myself from those days of silent bewilderment, I became boisterously outspoken, highly skeptical, and unfortunately for one befuddled adolescent sexuality instructor, impossibly funny. His class, a horrifying journey through chronic penis envy, alienation, and hidden mother-son connections was the only one I ever got kicked out of. I didn't need some soft spoken, pointer-wielding educator to explain to me that some guy's dicks held more sway. Duh.

Claiming my turf in student government, I held writing positions on the yearbook, and the student newspaper. Presiding over some clubs, while enduring membership in others, from all outward appearances, my life was different. Gone was Silent Messenger. I discovered that by using humor, biting self-targeted wit, and an air of approachable humility, I could disarm my enemies. Making my life the joke of all jokes became my ticket. Being different and vulnerable allowed a silent and collective afterthought, a second glance membership into the various groups that comprised the Bulldog commonality.

Yet I dreaded high school. This was the real “Survivor” show and I didn't want to get voted off the island. But in truth, I had no idea how to play the game. Being a preacher’s kid certainly brought its own alienating baggage, as did living so far out of town. In the end, I endured high school, an outsider among the insiders. I didn't get beat up, I didn't party, and I didn't get into much trouble. In fact, I didn't do much, other than waiting out all that artificial coming of age stuff and never looking back post graduation.

Now twenty years later, the same fears returned. Would they accept me? Had I achieved enough? What value would my life hold in their eyes now? Especially, after I'd done all this really cool shit. Let me repeat that...Now that I've done all this really cool shit. Did you hear me? ALL THIS REALLY COOL shit? Yeah me, I did...

Somewhere deep down, I imagined the blank stares. The awkward silences, immediately followed by my inevitable retreat. “Uh well, that's right classmates, me, Silent Messenger. I did some neat, well maybe not real neat, maybe it was just OK, stuff. I sort of accomplished and fought for things that none of you even know about. Right. OK. Sure. True, I was just thinking the exact same thing. You know what, you're so right! Yeah I SHOULD just go right back to that tiny, dark corner over there, the very one I just crawled out of. And yeah, thanks for your time.”

I could see my bio now. “Tim Anderson, doer of deeds that don't matter, that don't register and the behind the scenes creator of things you've probably never thought about. And never will.”

~ ~ ~

I stood holding my beer, a beverage I don't normally drink, in a swank country club that hadn't even existed during our high school days. If it had, I wouldn't have entered it. These days, Albany has been “discovered.” Ours is now an official bedroom community of Portland, complete with an hour plus commute and a quaint downtown dedicated to nostalgic antique shops.

Oh yeah and just for shits and grins, I'd brought my boyfriend to the reunion. He watched me, laughing. "Tim, you're shaking so bad you're getting beer on yourself."

I tried to focus on everything around me and found myself drowning as the shaking increased. So this was it. My class, twenty years after the fact, stood before me, mostly unrecognizable. I struggled to absorb it all.

Success. Failure. Who still has hair? Who no longer has hair? Who made it in life and who didn't? Who got fat? Who got chemo? Who got better tits? Whose marriages survived? Whose failed? Who is still with us? Who was born again? Who prematurely departed? Success. Failure. And the beauty of living in between.

Appearance is everything, and as I felt for my ball cap, I discovered that only some of us had our original bangs. Looming taller than natural, the great equalizing factor, hair, stood highlighted, foiled, implanted, chopped and dyed. Our beautiful hair, those of us who still clung to it, emerged as that first greeting card identifying and separating the recognizable from the strangers.

Surveying the room, it was obvious that many of us were bigger, if not better. I spied Atkins addicts who'd dieted for months, reclaiming waist sizes not seen since the ten year reunion. And those who I'd never imagined could put on so much weight.

Attempting to emerge from the cocoon of denial that I didn't care what anyone thought, I thought I'd made my peace with my piece of history. I'd thought I could hobnob with the wonderfully preserved and those whose life plans hadn't intended to end up here, like this, in such a state.

Everything and everyone seemed so distant and unfamiliar. What was I doing here? Like rubberneckers drawn to accident carnage, what compelled all of us to come, see and then, well what? What did the gods of high school reunions expect us to do with all this too much information?

Although twenty years prior, I'd known most of them fairly well, I still struggled to pick up where we'd left off. To follow the cliché, many of those passed over in high school as not attractive enough, not wealthy enough, or not popular enough, had done a “Romeo and Michele's High School Reunion” switch. Returning to the scene of the crime, they visited revenge upon those who'd so dissed them. The formerly rejected stood among us, testifying to the power of determination, stamina, and courage. They were now the handsome, the wealthy and the well connected. Still other classmates held fast to a timeless elegance, an air of universal sympathy, and an approachability that never wavered. Their commitment to compassionate dialogue reaffirmed and reinforced the startling reality that some among us had been real from the start.

Time had certainly done a number on the security of hometown memories. Twenty years ago, AIDS wasn't really on our radar screens. Yet. Bulldogs didn't lie awake all night in fear, wondering if this sore throat or that night sweat was just the flu, or the beginning of a very long end.

We hadn't lived through the gulf war. Or the sequel. We hadn't seen the birth of the Internet or gotten tired of Pac Man. We had no idea we would one day have cell phones permanently attached to our ears. Attached, that is, until we slammed into the car in front of us.

In 1983, we Bulldogs were still cold from the cold war. We still knew about iron curtains, closed societies, and that in some cities walls kept some people free and others longing for what we took for granted. Yet in those so far away days, we weren't really looking that far ahead on the horizon anyway. Although we made meager attempts to claim the future, embracing it as we grabbed our diplomas, our vision extended only so far. Our gaze was just distant enough into the unknown to know who we'd vote to be successful, most athletic. And me: most likely to draw portraits on street corners, a title that encouraged me to quit drawing altogether.

We were sexy. We were free. We were the class of ‘83. We went to the state basketball playoffs and got played. We wore bellbottoms, and twenty years later were wearing them again. We didn't think about condoms beyond their usefulness in preventing pregnancy, and had no idea that a material girl like Madonna would tell us that virginity could be a renewable resource. We were serious about not being serious.

We knew that president Carter had deregulated the airlines, but had no idea how deregulation in other industries would transport our collective society ever closer to the third world. We saw the rise of Christian fundamentalists during the Reagan years, but couldn’t see the Islamic fundamentalists in hijacked planes just over the horizon.

The artificiality of a country club evening seemed to touch everything golden and under somewhat airbrushed mental images, I felt a troubled detachment settle over me. My reunion wasn't what I'd expected. It, like much of my youth in Albany seemed destined to just make up one big giant non-event. I don't know what I expected, but this seemed anticlimactic.

~ ~ ~

On the final day of the reunion, we met at a local park for a picnic. As a child I'd endured many Sunday School picnics at the same park. Yet today seemed a lifetime removed from those Lutheran potluck atrocities. Today represented a glorious, sunshine-filled informal opportunity for a final glance back.

Many of my former classmates also brought their children. Here is where the detachment became complete. It was one thing to witness the transformation from adolescent to adult, quite another to acknowledge these people as parents. This was the giant disconnect, representing invisible separation from what was into the present now.

My life experience was alienating in its difference. During the years of our separation, the contrast between myself and my classmates seemed blinding. While they were buying houses, establishing careers and nesting, I'd lived another reality. I'd seen riots and a just blown up Federal Building, and watched friend after friend die of AIDS.

While the women from my class were breast feeding and watching kids go off to school, I watched the “Names Project” AIDS quilt that I'd once hauled first double, then triple, and finally quadruple in size. The Quilt multiplied from a single truckload to many. Representing a small grassroots watershed, our community attempted a passionate memorial until the quilt eventually became a political statement too big to display in its entirety in front of the White House. That I'd known those originally involved in this movement seemed untranslatable here.

At one point I found myself in a discussion with a former jock. We talked about his life and then about mine in Pend Oreille County. The conversation turned uncomfortable when I mentioned a tragic story he'd not heard. A neighbor girl, a few years behind us, was murdered by her husband in a Salem parking garage. Her husband later died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. I related how her shocked and mourning parents suddenly found themselves raising their grandchildren while struggling to make sense of their daughter's murder. The unbelievable news stunned Albany's residents and as the jock and I discussed surprising turns in life, he seemed unable to fathom such an event. I was being too serious. I was talking about the unmentionable realities of the lives of people we knew. Not nameless news stories, but people we knew.

Both of us had strong ties to northwestern Montana. As we retraced familiar places, we landed on the Vermiculite tragedy in Libby, Montana. Hundreds of people there were dead or dying slow excruciating deaths, poisoned as a result of careless mining practices. His take on growing up in the now shuttered mill town was breathtaking. "It's all the federal government. They're making a big deal out of nothing," he said. "Besides, most of those affected are people in their seventies. We all have to die sometime." He paused for a minute. "Man, you're depressing."

I stood there wondering. Was this the case? Was talking about tragic events that had befallen communities and people we knew really focusing on the negative? Or was our conversation acknowledging the true sparks that bind us together? Maybe we should just talk about good fortune, and pleasant happy things, avoiding events that aren't so light and wonderful. Maybe the sad parts of our lives should just be filtered and ignored through the pretend gaze of country clubbed reunions like this.

A few seconds later I was approached by another former neighbor. I introduced him to the boyfriend. Catching up on the years of separation, we discussed mutual acquaintances, my father's ministry and my family's history with horses. Early in our horse breeding experience, our spirited horses escaped on a cold winter day. During their short lived flight, they destroyed a significant amount of the landscaping in a subdivision a mile north of our small farm. After laughing about this he turned serious, and offered, "I think it's cool that you can be yourself now. Ten years ago you couldn't have come to this like you have. I mean, I think I'd heard somewhere that you were gay...but well it's easier now."

I thought for a minute. "It's easier now." I didn't know if I should celebrate. Was our new found acceptability permanent or would I be perpetually holding my breath for the rest of my life waiting for the next conservative shoe to drop?

In his mind, ten years ago my partner could not have attended an event such as this; at least not without our attendance risking the possibility of generating controversy or igniting violence. My former neighbor spoke from a perspective of refreshing honesty and without the layers of carefully constructed, politically correct disingenuousness. He knew the then. And he knew the now. But like most of my classmates, I suspect he was pretty clueless about the struggles and the one step forward, two steps back, that filled the intervening twenty years.

Easier now, yes. But at what cost? Our interaction became the most sobering moment of the weekend. But also the most optimistic.

As I watched him walk to his car with his wife, the real, pretend, sparks issue danced through my mind. Twenty years of history. Twenty years of looking back. Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so is accomplishment and even success. I had to ask myself some difficult questions at that moment. Was my life one of aspiration, or an experience that was spiraling further and further out into the abyss? Was all this group reminiscence indulgent? Or was it not indulgent enough?

My life made little sense to me here in this context. My story didn't seem to fit. Feeling like a crash-landed alien in a world I was supposed to recognize, again I explored the wisdom of Laura and Danny's four year old boy. Real. Pretend. Sparks.

I was a stranger in a stranger land, struggling to find what was real, what was pretend, and what might spark some sort of greater understanding for all of this experience that was supposed to bind us together. Sharing and reunion, packaged up between myself and my fellow Bulldogs left me off center and uncertain.

Pondering my involvement in the world, my accomplishments, and the unanswered challenges still on my agenda, I sought to measure the progress of my life in the eyes of those who surrounded me. My life story didn't seem to matter much to my classmates. Was anything truly accomplished in the preceding twenty years? Could I ever claim success?

Sitting down, I nervously considered my achievements. In the late eighties, I was one of the very few "out" drivers. Now, I was the vice president of the first international organization of gay drivers, many of whom were totally out. In the late eighties, while trucking across America, I wrote about the road from a gay perspective and was regularly published. A decade later I was among the first drivers to post my journeys on the Internet. The majority of the thousands of responses I’ve received have come from cheering straight readers.

I had played an active and early role in the fight against the spread of AIDS and other STDs at truckstops across the country. And taken a public stand against the Oregon Citizens Alliance and others who sought to roll back advances in gay rights.

This was my biography, but it seemed like nothing of consequence. At least it seemed to me that it might seem to my classmates as nothing of consequence.

"So Tim, are you still drawing those pictures?" I looked up. Another classmate stood in front of me asking the same question I'd fielded many times over the weekend. I shook my head no.

"Why not?"

Caught off guard, I shrugged, my mouth agape, realizing for the first time that many of my classmates actually expected me to be a great artist by now. Truthfully, I'd not drawn anything in years. Once again hundreds of those mountain cabins hastily sketched on napkins or notebook paper returned to foreground. I repeated his question silently. Why not? Why did I quit?

I'd always wanted to live in the mountains, in the middle of nowhere. After first coming out, late in college, my friends laughed at such an idea. "You can't live up there, it's not safe." Repeat a lie often enough and the lie distorts reality, gaining the reputation of truth. Growing up in rural areas, I'd suspected my gay ghetto friends warnings were repeats of someone's tired pride rhetoric. They didn't know what they were talking about.

Until recently, the conventional wisdom held that gay folk couldn't live in the middle of the hinterlands. Yet I'd always been most comfortable there. Now nearing mid-life, I no longer needed to draw picture after picture dreaming about a life in the mountains because I'd been living it for a long time. Instead, I wrote about the surprising acceptance, tolerance and welcome that cascaded all around me. We are here. And we always have been.

Until the Internet, rural stories weren't included in the vast canvas that is the gay community. We didn't know the right editors or have the political savvy to get our stories told. Nor was a humble country life usually about blowing your own horn. We lived our lives like it was no one's business. But in time, rural gay folk became a trendy phenomenon, featured in gay magazines and urban Sunday newspapers. Almost overnight, being "out in the middle of nowhere” was in. Now researchers are finally acknowledging that rural gays can live happy, fulfilling lives without migrating to the city. Some of that research occurred in my back yard.

~~~

Eventually the final attendees of the reunion scattered their separate ways. Soon only Danny, his boys, my boyfriend and I remained. As the afternoon breezes gained intensity, I felt the exhaustion of too much introspection. The sanity of all my preconceptions and my game plan for gaining the acceptance of my peers from Albany seemed in ruins.

What did it matter? I alone knew my autobiography. In the summer heat my history seemed unimportant and hardly noteworthy. I felt discouraged. If anything I was more estranged than ever from the class of ’83. I wondered what in our lives is really worth celebrating. We can list our accomplishments; trying to prove our relevance, our fleeting kiss to a historical footnote. But there has to be something more substantial to who we are than these mile markers.

If nothing else, I now suspected reunions really clarified how unimportant those recognized moments are. Such pretend triumphs probably separate us far more from one another than they unite. Resumes, newspaper clippings, and honors pass. But what might actually ignite, sparking further movement, change and most importantly translate into some higher representation of life? Personal connections, shared experience, and the common sting of human pain are credited with creating such actions.

Standing in the midst of the picnic tables and cleaning up the remaining litter, I stood frozen, watching the playground equipment. The swings remained silently swaying in memory of the aborted play of my classmates’ children. The moment was haunting. Time continued, the world spun, and the Class of ‘83 had already gone off in their multiple directions again. We the sexy and free, chasing our dreams. Nursing our hurts. United and distanced by the same history and the unknown future.

~ ~ ~

It's been six months now since that reunion. Winter has come to the Intermountain West and time's transitions already erode the warmth of those summer days. Recently, I found myself in Spokane, standing on the curb of Sprague Avenue, again staring at my youth-filled dreams. Aimless, under the glow of a "Pre-Owned, Quality Auto" sign, I loitered. Coloring everything surreal, the neon gave definition where normally I'd usually pay no mind to this scene. For some reason, since the reunion, everything is different.

A used pickup truck boasting a "One Owner" sticker competes with another fluorescent sign banging wildly in the gusts, the day glow pink letters promising, "Your Job is Your Credit." Six months after the celebration of post high school accomplishments, I've got neither. I don't know what the future holds. My vision is still uncertain, both figuratively, and physically, resulting from the accident I survived nearly two years prior. Both definitions of vision can be daunting even to the most courageous of soul searchers. Six months later I’m still grappling with the issues of success, accomplishment, and how to measure my life to date.

A man waiting at the bus stop in front of the dealership speaks to no one in particular. Sometimes when the traffic hushes, I hear his words. Staring into the late winter, lifeless, gray Spokane rain-snow mix, the huddled man paces back and forth. Coming toward me, then walking away, his strides are the disgruntled steps of one who is cold, impatient and short on empowerment over a tardy transit system . Drawing closer, I make sense of nothing in this picture as the hunched man rants that he doesn't listen to country music because it's too depressing and that if you try to please everyone, no one ends up happy. The bus arrives and he steps up into his ride to anywhere but here.

In the silence of the graveyard showcasing the once new autos, the only thing I can hear is the buzzing of the sign. But louder than the sign, I am working very hard ignoring the chorus in my mind, a chorus repeating endlessly that, for the first time in my life, I don't know where I am going. I've been hearing it now for six months, prompted by my return to Albany.

Freshly home from a Seattle visit with a surgeon whose name I still can't pronounce, I know that the good doctor has taken measurements, written notes about my progress, and offered hope of outcomes. We've done surgery once. Might have to do it again. In an examination room at the University of Washington Eye Center, I heard the words recounting procedures involving detaching and reattaching the muscles that control the movements of my eyes. Terminology races through my mind. Adjustable sutures. Deep tissue sutures. Infection risks. Blindness.

And other words. New Career. Partial Disability. Resolution. Risk. Recovery. Throw the words up in the air and see where they land.

This is my present reality. That I never saw myself standing at this crossroads, impatiently waiting for my ride from anywhere but here, is a truth I would rather not acknowledge. Always have a plan. Always have an out. That's what they teach newbie truck drivers at the CDL mills. I have neither

Unsettled, I watch another bus pull up to the stop and then hurry on. Turning back into the wind, I realize that the ride I was supposed to catch is a ride I might have already missed. This, all of this present, feels very real. It feels like suffocation, not like the airy glow surrounding last summer's surreal reunion. I see no pretend in any of this, and as I search for the glow of some spark, it eludes me.

High above the street, a chipped, paint-covered, grain elevator blocks the low setting sun. Beyond the elevator and the many railroad tracks, lies the river, a place just as "wrong side of the tracks" as the sidewalks I now shuffle down. It seems no surprise that at this juncture of my life, both sides of the tracks represent the “wrong” side.

Along the river to my right, populations of homeless already understand this reality. I don't know how I know it, but I know the hidden commerce taking place along the bouldered banks of the river is no better, or worse than the commerce on the street I now walk. Bartered exchanges are the currency of the homeless. There are few "cash only" deals. Nearly everyone on this street runs a repeated race. Chasing any sort of escape whether it is the old standby of malt whatever or the quicker trip to your destination, and bigger bang for the buck, meth.

I'm not there yet but I can suddenly understand finding a half torn ticket in my pocket stamped with that destination. The wind shifts again, and the cold reminds the unwary that shelter is often fragile and easily violated. Luck seems to be reinforcing the sudden shiftlessness that fate deals those who aren't paying attention. The gale spits sleet, the sky grows darker, and summer feels like it is a lifetime away. Things could be worse. But they could also be better.

Walking, and walking, and losing sense of time and place, I eventually find myself staring down over the Interstate 90 freeway. Perched on a pedestrian overpass within eyesight of the grain elevators, I watch as those just passing through pass underneath. Motion and motors, large cars with dual stacks and small cars with small mufflers. Eastbound and westbound, they blur into a dizzying procession as my face rests on the cold metal of chain link fencing. All that's separating me from them and a plunge onto the concrete below is the wobbling fence. I feel precarious yet rooted in the same instant.

Standing watch over commerce and commuters, a chill runs down my spine as my eyes water and blur. I remember a moment of spontaneous combustion in this spot. While trucking a load of fries westbound, I'd spied two teenage girls walking across the pedestrian overpass where now I stood. Strolling as if oblivious to the traffic beneath, they reached the middle of the overpass. Abruptly they paused, bent over, and lifted their skirts far over their arching backs, pressing their pantied behinds against the chain links. The traffic below came to a screeching halt. Brake lights, skidding, and dynamited reflexes halted all further progress on the roadway. Satisfied, the girls stood upright in unison, their skirts falling back into place. Without missing a beat they continued their progress to the other side of the overpass. Not once did the young women acknowledge the havoc and chaos they'd created. Heads held high, they walked straight ahead, as if nothing out of the ordinary occurred until finally they disappeared off the southern edge of the overpass. Traffic remained paralyzed, an entire community of immobilized travelers remaining under their spell.

Recalling those girls’ composure in the face of so much self-created confusion, I thought about my own situation. I wondered how long it would be, if ever, before I could bend over and flash the world, and send it screeching to a halt. Then carry on as if I didn't care. How long would it take until I could just keep walking as if nothing happened? Always focused on the goals, rather than the tallied results, I wanted that serenity. I knew I could have used a batch of it at the reunion.

How does one know when their unique moment, their token 15 minutes of fame, is over? How long should I wait for the internal signal granting permission that I can finally stand, turn and distance myself from the scene of my triumph and the end of my embarrassment?

I wanted to be like those girls, so unaware of their power, so dizzying in their affect on the world, yet always completely focused on the horizon. Somehow on that winter day I felt as if those two teenagers got it. They could differentiate between the real, the pretend, and the spark. They had no desire to luxuriously simmer in the slowly rotting results of their efforts. They'd already moved on. The aroma of the original moment was enough for them. It had already propelled them on their way.

I suppose if I could recreate any situation it would be that Danny, his boys, and I would one day enter another sidewalk art competition. This time I'd be paying attention. This time I'd appreciate the wonder of such a moment as it was happening rather than after the fact. I could see us now, on a bright summer day, full of warmth and possibility. That we would take that space, designated as ours, and turn it into a blinding moment of beauty. Freely knowing and content that within mere days, all trace of our efforts would be gone. That we could live with that futility, focused in the moment, not caring about the future life of our efforts. Maybe such an understanding might offer contentment. Maybe such serenity would bridge the uncertainties generated by reunions, performance reviews, and the mirrors of our relationships.

For if our lives are to mean anything, the lubrication of time and the honesty of the journey should always outshine the stark achievements, the backward glances and the hope of future destinations. We should always be free to dream with the wisdom of experience. A knowledge that, if we are listening, will always help us differentiate the meanings behind the trilogy of The Real, The Pretend and The Spark.

© 2004 Timothy Anderson