I love tellings that begin, “When I was a boy.”
When I was a boy, the summer was my favorite time of year.
And in south Louisiana, the approach of summer was the smell of Westminster Elementary School’s air conditioning kicking on. It was feeling the sweat turn icy cool on my back and legs as I came in from recess with the rest of the kids. It was the archeology of emptying my backpack. Down south, we called them “book-sacks.” It was the hollow sound of an empty school desk on that last day of class.
Summer.
Of course, summer always began with entertainment and the luxury of an all-day recess. But summer was long, and in a couple weeks, time slowed, games lost their novelty and the day couldn’t pass by quickly enough before the afternoon TV began. Square One, Duck Tales, where are you now?
In this slow time, my ideas of what-to-do came rarely, if at all. But one day, I had a doozy. Lying on my back, living it up in the air conditioning, and staring at the water-marked ceiling, I thought, this bit of ceiling is old. I’m used to it.
I need some new ceiling.
I moseyed into the living room, got down on my back and took in the view. Nope. Still too well-known. So, I scootched over to the corner of the room where my folks’ dusty stationary bike held its beaked nose high, and its flywheel hung heavy below. I set up shop there, and looked to the ceiling.
This was more like it.
These corners were completely new. Unfamiliar. An alien landscape, inverted, above me. Here were corners meeting for the first time. Shadows cast in new triangles and faded as they reached down the walls. There was a friendly meeting of brick chimney and wallpaper that I had never suspected before.
I went under the tables, desks and chairs. I found corners by the record player or the china hutch. I spent many minutes in the middle of the hallway, where no one would ever stop. In doorways that appeared to me to be port holes in a sea vessel more than an old cedar wood house. I rested on wood, tile and linoleum. I spent my time on carpet, rug and mat.
There were discoveries to be made. I found drifting clouds of tawny fur from my dog, a torn mouse toy, abandoned by the cat, a dime, a grocery store twist-tie, a desiccated moth, crayons. From new angles, I took in the house, my home, my world of cool air. Back in the real world, the plastic dust cover of my mother’s library book cracked and crinkled in the kitchen. I heard a page noisily sweep and flip. They were always mysteries. Chicken baked in the oven, and I can still smell the breadcrumbs.
I went back to this exercise with my kids when they were young and crawling. We would play with toys, or read a book on the floor. We would talk to the spider scuttling from table leg to the shadows beneath the bookshelf. I discovered this new home has its own strange triangles of shadow and lonely postcard doorways. Under the tables and cabinets, the same treasures, only replace the remains of the moth with the husk of a mustard-colored lady beetle.
Now in quarantine, we have all been at home. The kids are bigger, and done with their school work. We need to give the screens a break. We pick spots on the floor. We find the second empty house above us. A parallel universe hidden in plain sight. We take in the structure, the spider webs. Under the sofa we see a nineteen eighty-something Lego spaceman. Greetings, fellow explorer.
We are getting to know this place like we might never have before.
– Micah Clarke
Micah Clarke is a father of two, a husband of one, a son of two, and a brother of one. He draws a lot, paints very little, and writes children’s books. Is a book a book if no one has ever published it? If not, he’s still a draftsman and a very little painter. He likes his eggs over easy, with grits and crispy bacon. And he wants you to know that he’s grateful to you for taking time to read his posts.