Bill Vernon served in the United States Marine Corps, he studied English literature, then taught it. Writing is his therapy, along with exercising outdoors and doing international folkdances. His poems, stories and nonfiction have appeared in a variety of magazines and anthologies, and Five Star Mysteries published his novel "OLD TOWN" in 2005.
Better Than Flowers
Better Than Flowers
Winter, the first skim of ice on my driveway where
the tar puckered up to hold for a while the gift of the heavens. "Watch
your step," I tell the kids. "Hard surface." Because it can
throw you. It can make your innocent feet slip out from under your weight so
you land on your backside or worse. In a parking lot at
work, a friend lay for
half an hour unconscious below the keys dangling in his car door. Nearly frozen
when he woke up and drove himself home, the heater on high, the fan too,
blowing warmth directly on his face and chest. Not about to stiffen into rigor
mortis yet.
Similar thing, the face on a lover,
friend, stranger, the contours and wrinkles, the crinkles at the eyes,
unmoving, hard surface, the stare as if paralyzed or molded. Seeing this
condition, you hesitate before speaking, before stepping closer, knowing that
upon contact your unsuspecting feet could fly out beneath you and your heavy
mass falling could crack your head, break an elbow, could injure your coccyx, could stimulate the growth of a pilonidal cyst or if you already have
one aggravate it so the pain is unreal, so it drains, so you have to see a
doctor, have an operation, pray to recover. Enough. The point is if you have
any sense you proceed carefully before intervening. You ask what's wrong and
try to help, hope to help, but with reserve, holding full commitment back, not
plunging in.
You've learned. You have your own
hard surfaces. Not just one, many. You have low spots in your psyche and they gather
water. Sometimes they reflect the sun or the surroundings, and that can be
beautiful. But even those containing paintings by the greatest master artist,
your own imagination, they can suddenly communicate pain, nostalgia, sadness,
anger, fear. We can slip on their surfaces, bang up our egos, change our tunes,
and lie there staring inward unconscious of the real world. We know where the
slippery spots are and avoid them most of the time, but they attract us too,
enough to venture nearer. In innocent, relaxed moments, our minds step on them
unwittingly, and so we slip again.
However, hard surfaces are good.
They set limits. They stop us, curtail our freedom and possible excesses. A hard
surface holds us up. All of them offer themselves unchanging unless we chisel
off pieces. Make window sills and kitchen counters out of granite. Getting a
hard surface under control more or less, less meaning occasional pieces of
china or glass or something else brittle might fall against them and shatter.
So even here in these everyday things you have to be careful.
Still, a hard surface can be an
opportunity, letting us carve it into a smooth and crystal clear likeness, like
two hands or a face emerging from stone or ice. This beauty proves that we can
be in charge. Our soft realities, our thoughts and efforts, can make something
good out of something solid and rough. Creations that are sometimes better than
flowers.
~Bill Vernon
