The Perils of Living and Sea Level

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First, I look out the window to see a man in an orange, yellow, silver vest, the type for road crew and now the Costco set that buy them as walking accessory, the new left who throw themselves in front of speeding cars imagining that if they’re killed in the solid lines of the glittering crosswalks they’ve served the community in some non-violent, activised way. These are the places of retired wealth who claim to be living simply, shop-bought organic.

I point in which way I’d like to go, to the clown dressed man and his stop sign, down towards the nine o’clock appointment with white shoes, the non-for-pay, state crisis worker I’ve been seeing for some years now, for no very particular reason except that he has become an anchor of nothing-styro in the seafoam of not being able to unstick myself from long-held sticks, perhaps century-long beliefs?

Then, it was another patch of road crew work at the Fort George Brewery, sticky situations when you have to rip up the plumbing inside of a wrought-iron-fenced rose and fennel garden. I see a white haired woman in hot pink racing on her handicap cart towards the barricade, but I have no time to stop and watch the crash of talk or body beyond that. Will she be another of these handicaps that will test the disabilities act by riding her go-cart into a pot hole under the crane that drops an ingot of steel, okay, I know I’m exaggerating now, will drop a long length of PVC pipe that scrapes her eye glasses off of her face and broken, out of arms-length, into the pit.

And, then, after circling the building for no parking, a blonde nurse with bouncing boobs she can’t keep held in her camel-colored-cardigan pitches herself into the white lines, I slam on my brakes and she doesn’t even look at me. The elevator is out of order and I must walk four sets of stairs and that fat man I meet in there tells me they’re forcing us to get our exercise this morning as I suck in my stomach and my own boobs so we don’t touch in our passing. Five after, I am there, a sitting duck in the waiting room, but must wait until ten after for the giant tennis shoes to peek out from behind the heavy door, come and invite me in.

Better Homes and Gardens, I read through the screened, metal holder bolted to the wall. I thought a holiday issue, three wise men, but how strange they’d be doing a nineteen seventies religious affiliated cover? Realizing they must not be, I imagined they might be three sweet, bread loaves and there inside will be the recipes, very tiny print, near the back. But upon squinting my eyes I read Happy Fourth of July this November morning and realize that these are not three wise men, but hotdogs with various ketchups and mustards and relishes.

Another woman, the only other, also waiting, is younger and pretty wearing bedazzled jeans and she has her own cup of overflowing coffee she’s brought from home. I had spoken out loud to myself before leaving home that I didn’t need to bring my own mug of coffee, I could leave it on the counter and have more after, after all, my teeth white after brushing. And this younger version smiles at me and I back and I marvel at her hope and happiness in this place of no help and promise of everything, nobody is turned away.

I smell her perfume covering her morning cigarette and think of how I always liked that smell, how I no longer smoke, but like to, how my father told me once I smelled like a French whore, yes, indirectly, but it was after I’d worn his long, burgundy wool sweater over my striped peg legs to school and he’d smelled it in front of my mother, his face cramping disgust, bringing to baring his crooked, yellowing teeth as he brought it to his nose and made his declarations.

Once a smiling teenager from a port town, Seattle, Bothell, the states of the rich by water, now a drying husk of only-just dreams in the desert, sent overseas to be leveled in Vietnam and I was his daughter.

Side note: Geographically speaking, my home state was once covered by ocean and seas, a place once at sea level now with elevations ranging between 2000-13,528 feet, hence the pic of where once a sea...

freewrite sealevel psychology dreaming family
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I wonder if you wrote all this thinking of "Sea level" or you just wrote whatever came to mind filling a certain volume with writing and then thought of how to connect it to the topic in the last two paragraphs.

I was especially impressed with one long sentence and thought to myself "If I paste it into Word? Would it complain?" I felt excited, kind of like that boy in the movie Matrix who thought that Neo will jump from one building to another one from the first time. I pasted the sentence into Word and behold the miracle... No, not quite. Word complained at it as a run-on sentence.

Although to me, it sounded good and natural. Like a woman who, dressed in a sophisticated way, just came from the ladies' bathroom, where she powdered her nose. Like a lullaby that you enjoy listening, but cannot remember at the end of it what was at the beginning.

I wonder whether this long sentence is an expression of similarly long and winding thought or several thoughts that are crammed into one sentence by the power of will despite their complaints about claustrophobia.

I also wonder if this "spread over the surface of vision" pattern of thought is the typical pattern of female thinking or it is something individual like a signature or a fingerprint.

I am writing a story about a girl who was in love with her teacher and wonder if her thought pattern should be just as amorphous and spread over the surface of the vision to sound genuine.

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Well, lot's of questions here and no question marks? I guess they're all rhetorical? ;)
And, most difficult to answer because they're both and not either/or. Like, yes, I do think I may think typically female, but also that I am my own voice too.
I know I do write in very long sentences, but just match my writing as closely as I can to the way in which I talk &/or how the piece sounds read aloud. There is a musicality and very particular cadence to the way in which I read my work too.
I went to the prompt, typed it on my page, set my phone timer for five and went for it. I live at sea level now, so included the day and all of its linking to this idea of seeing level--
I did go over the limit, but don't mind if I feel I am in the groove, but all together took no longer than ten. Hey, matches my time in the waiting room!
Thank you for taking the time to read and comment and I do hope that your book comes together nicely :)

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Cool! Thx for answering. It's very telling how you notice all those things that going on around you. I always have a problem with it because when I walk I either concentrated on what I am thinking about or looking around for something in particular, for example on filming the birds.

Good luck with your freewrite!

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Your freewrites usually leave me oddly both in touch with the world and alienated from it, participant and observer. You see so much more than I do as I hustle down the streets with my head down or focused on the road.
I love the knowing his shoes would be white, his shoes invite you in, not him. His shoes reinforced your existential sensibilities, make life doable by remaining a nothing-burger you can rely on.
A myriad of persons, we can still differ from one another, except on April 15 (in the US) when we are all the same reporting where all of our property is and where it came from or where it went. Gotta stay in those crosswalks though, if only to prove a point.
Sitting duck in a waiting room. I'll never wait in quite the same way again.
I love a freewrite that inspires me to freewrite. When you do that to me, I start to sound a tiny bit like you. Mimicry, angst, passage of time kind of stuff, not exactly calming, but not agitating either. I just am. I write, therefore we are.
It's lways a pleasure, or somesuch, to read you.

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Yes, freewrite is the best! Not unlike the ecstatic dance classes I facilitate. I provide the music and you see where it takes you, the wilder, the quieter, the better :)
I guess I just can't help but take everything in as I go out into the world and it can feel a drain at times to notice and feel so much.
Love nothing burger! I do call him white shoes to friends and family when I reference him :)

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I can see this about you in your writings. You're a sponge, an energy sponge, nearly everything you encounter affects you in some way. I can walk right by and not notice, often to a fault.
Although I rarely notice shoes, even would would notice off someone's were always white. That seems like a special kind of stupid to me.

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My mother made a point of telling me you could definitely judge someone by the shoes they wear ;)

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Dance classes sound really cool. Like sufis twirling for the divine pleasure it gives them.

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Let's celebrate the sea lying there for all the sailors to have their odyssey on! In the festive mood, I instantly wanted to buy something. Might it even be just the day for it?!

I checked the calendar to see what festive day it might be, but also to make sure I wasn't inanely celebrating Odyssey Day prematurely: I learn it is currently (officially in this country!) "fertility week" (meh, maybe yes, probably not quite my theme anymore); But also, LOw tide and Behigh and old: it's Tsunami Day!(??)... Ehm... would it now be just the time to or inappropriate to go shopping for sailing accessories?

I am veering towards the latter. You see I had already stumbled upon something earlier, when I looked up what Costco's was.

Here I was buzzing: OMG! OV is going to heart Costco's: look what I've found for him! He's going to feel all cheerful about life again.
But then I clicked on Toys and Floats failing to find this product as Google promised I would. I am now going to have to cancel our 5 guests in order to be able to gift him this one to enjoy all by himself instead.

No, not the lady! The Sportsstuff Siesta Pool Lounger Float of course.

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Well, just not the time of year at Costco for the island float toys. Right now they're bringing out the fake Christmas trees, wrapping paper and bundles of Scotch tape (already got one on sale) for I like a roll in every drawer. January will be home furnishings and rugs, you put away all of the gifts and then it's time to get a new couch, pillows and rug. Maybe, by May the beach towels, goggles and floating Islands will be offered again?

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Oh yes, what house can call itself properly equipped without a roll in every drawer! And I can only go with Scotch for cellotape. I've tried all the rest and they never work as well. If they paid me I'd wrap myself in it, if only to stop myself from rushing to Costco too soon and being tempted by all the wares you roll out before me. Clearly you are already being paid...

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I don't know what is wrong with you American people - paint worked for Vermeer. But here is your explanation for your trouble focusing on the cover of that magazine and mistaking hotdogs for something like this (Rubens): you just aren't in synch with the artist within you. Of course, you see art in a hotdog! You are an artist, face it! Get painting! Try something Cubist or be a Fauve, why not, with onion rings and curry paste!

Shouldn't every home have a hotdog painting? I think waitingrooms would make for better waiting with one in them. You know, just to put your own madness into perspective.

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You make me laugh! Uggghhh, hotdogs are so gross, I always vomited them as a kid on camping trips. I think I just wanted to see the Wise men?

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