Breathing

I always think of bicycle wheels and ice-cream-on-sunny-days when I listen to this song. Strange how something can hit you somehow and yet just make you think of ice cream. And bicycle wheels.

A great weekend, a family of friends, fire dancers in your backyard, mesmerised on the balcony... it was a cool evening, just a little too chilly for my dress but I decided to forge ahead and wear that garish outfit anyway, jacketless. It is a gloriously obnoxious green with brown and yellow and orange and red, all twisted together with a belt around a high waist.

I love standing on the deck, looking down -- even when the firespinner stopped and smothered his flame, it is enough to watch groups of two or three slowly talking, drinking. You might be able to step off and keep walking until you march onto the rusted tin roof of the shack at the other side of the parking lot. If you really wanted to. Perhaps bounce off someone's head on the way. Gently of course. And then from there, from that new perch, you could keep going. Or sit on the spine of the roof for a moment. Though I fear I might soon bore of that and decide to stand and turn. I think you can see the Washington monument from there. A little red blinking light on top. Flashing.

I was on the Mall today. It's been about two years since I visited the monuments. And I don't know that I have ever been the guide. Spinning a tale of history from the Pacific ocean to the battlefields of Virginia and the Carolinas.

I love watching people stand in front of Lincoln to have their photographs taken. Some stand tall and proud. Some smile, others maintain a sincere face, as if many moments have built up to this moment in particular and documentation is awaited at home. Some smaller visitors run up, stand there grinning, hands behind their backs, turning round right as the flash goes, catching them grinning at the man himself, that grand marble soul.

They come from all over -- and they do marvel. I think it's important to remember how to marvel.

That thought makes me turn round, take in the man himself. I always am struck by his knees. His legs are so long, so strong. He is sure of it, sure of what has happened -- though not forgetful of the pain, of the brothers dying and the sisters abandoned. He stands facing the wind...yet also for a moment or two shutting his eyes and thinking why oh why oh god do we bleed?

And bleed we do. Follow the steps down. Walk to the left. A black wall. A long black wall. A book with many thumbed pages. Who was on the bottom of that page? Photos. I feel sick when I know my life has already been longer than theirs. My life -- my life that I feel is still new, still being worn in. And they died, they died for what...I can't help but hear the question echoing on and on and on in my head.

I tell him you know, every single president who wants to take us to war should have to spend a night sitting in front of that wall, reading every name, breathing every single one. Till he feels those lives in his veins. Then if he still thinks it's worth it, then he can make his case. Before that I just don't want to hear it.

And then back gently into the sunnyland -- so green. The willows tremble a little, blown by a little breath...I can't quite get rid of that slow feeling, which makes me blink gradually, taking a little more darkness than normal before reopening my life to the world.

And then to the metro and home. And to this song. This song so sad but yet full of ice cream and bicycle wheels.