PATTERNS IN THE RAIN
This is something I wrote nearly four years ago. It now seems like it could have been by someone else. In the words of L.P. Hartley, "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there." She's now 22 and ready to graduate college. We seem to find it even harder to stay in touch these days.
“Strangely, the sea doesn’t get tedious to look at. Wave tracks converge and criss-cross in patterns that have never happened before and will never happen again. It can take hours to tear one’s eyes away.” Sebastian Junger, The Perfect Storm.
The March rain has been falling steadily since mid-morning, though it’s mostly let up now. I’m driving through the early evening darkness, wipers intermittently pushing water across the windshield, streetlights reflecting off the pavement, traffic lights splashing long, wavy lines of red, yellow and green. I turn into the restaurant parking lot, beneath an orange and green neon sign. As I do so, the car thumps through a big pothole wedged between the roadway and the driveway, and the tires toss up a sheet of water, whose dirty droplets sparkle briefly in the fluorescence of the parking lot lights, then fall back onto the asphalt, becoming once again muddy, oily water. I walk through the light rain and then along the building, under the eaves. I notice intertwining, endless ripples in the puddles along the sidewalk, as the steady drips of water find their way down from the edges of the overhanging roof.
I pull open the glass door and spot her, standing just beyond the doorway, near the dark-paneled wall, just having risen from the cushioned bench. Short blonde hair, wearing a green hooded sweatshirt, tennis shoes, and blue jeans, in many ways looking like the high school senior she is, yet also looking surprisingly small and slight for her 18 years. It still strikes me as odd that she got here by herself, instead of waiting for me to pick her up. Intellectually, I know she’s had her license since the day she turned 16 and has been driving regularly since then. But in my unguarded moments, she’s still a little girl, waiting for rides. I sometimes forget it’s been nearly eight years since she left, since she went to live with her mom. That’s a lot of time in a young life, and many changes have occurred, most without my knowing about them until later. Anyway, she’s here now, looking toward me with a nervous smile. This is an awkward moment for both of us. Despite the weekly phone calls and occasional weekend visits, it seems like forever since we talked openly, and most of the moments we have shared lately have been tinged by apprehension, frustration, and suppressed emotion. This is supposed to be an evening of resolution, an opportunity to wash away the residue of the past several years, to wipe the slate clean, to say a clear goodbye to the past and to open the way to new beginnings. I’m moving away, going 500 miles from here, so that even the illusion of resuming our shared lives must die. We’re here for a sort of last supper, a chance to say the right things and, maybe, to lay the groundwork for a better future.
It soon becomes obvious that everything isn’t going to be accomplished tonight. We greet each other awkwardly, and make small talk as we follow the server to a table by the windows. The words feel scripted, and we both recognize that the past adheres too tightly to be easily brushed aside. Having the waitress take our orders provides a welcome, but short, distraction. Once, during a silence that has grown too long, I turn and stare at the window, and watch a bead of water work its way down. I wonder, idly, why it doesn’t drop straight – what sort of imperfection in, or on, the glass causes it to wander like it goes? But it doggedly keeps pushing down, until it finally disappears below the windowsill. Likely it will drop into a puddle down there, and, before losing itself in the pool, will leave its mark in ever expanding ripples, perfect circles that reach nearly to the edges before losing energy and disappearing forever. I think that’s what will happen, but I don’t see it – and if no one sees that pattern, it’s like it never really existed.
“What are you looking at,” she asks, with a nervous edge to her voice. “Nothing,” I reply, with a slight laugh, “just looking.” From then on, things go better, the words flow more freely, we even laugh a little, sometimes without strain or restraint. At one point I remember an episode from my younger days, when I was her age, and I talk for awhile, then stop. “But enough about that,” I say, “nobody wants to hear a middle-aged man telling stories about things he once did.” “You’re wrong,” she says, “I do. I want to listen to your stories.” I look up, look at her, actually meeting her eyes for the first time that evening, probably for the first time in years, since our lives began flowing down separate channels. And I realized that she does want to hear these stories, she needs to hear them and, even more, I desperately want her to hear them. For her, they are an indication of her own beginnings, suggestions of where she comes from, evidence of the imperfections in our beings that may help to make sense of things to come. And, for me, for her to hear my stories gives meaning to my past. Otherwise, the incidents of my life are merely patterns that have never happened before and will never happen again, nothing more than random happenings in time, no more and no less than any other. The understanding and appreciation of people who care makes those moments, and makes me, special. And I realized that, no matter how much the stream of our shared being has broken into separate currents, she and I will always touch in some way. The blood that flows in her is half mine, and we are forever linked.
The evening goes on, the words working their way back through the lost years, the conversation ebbing and flowing until, suddenly, it’s time for us to part, each going to our separate homes, our separate lives. As we stand in the doorway, it becomes painfully clear that this evening has reached a moment of resolution, when something should be said, or done, to impose some meaning to this pattern. But nothing happens. Two hours of talk cannot undo eight years. Not all at once, anyway. We make awkward statements of goodbye, and exchange promises to write. The rain has picked up again, and I watch her dash to her car. The brakelights of her car flash through the semi-darkness, then the back-up lights, and the raindrops sparkle like diamonds. Her car backs around, pulls forward, and she’s gone.
As I drive home, I again notice water streaking and flowing down and across the windshield. I stop at a traffic light and watch the steady dripping of rainwater, off the little awning above the red light, the drips momentarily flashing crimson against the yellowish fluorescence of the streetlights. I realize I never hugged her goodbye. That would have been the defining moment, and I had let it slip away, like I had so many others. I wipe my hand across my face, pushing aside the few tears that have worked down my face, glad there’s no one here to see them. The light turns green, I step on the gas and move on. By now she’s probably halfway home.
PATTERNS IN THE RAIN
“Strangely, the sea doesn’t get tedious to look at. Wave tracks converge and criss-cross in patterns that have never happened before and will never happen again. It can take hours to tear one’s eyes away.” Sebastian Junger, The Perfect Storm.
The March rain has been falling steadily since mid-morning, though it’s mostly let up now. I’m driving through the early evening darkness, wipers intermittently pushing water across the windshield, streetlights reflecting off the pavement, traffic lights splashing long, wavy lines of red, yellow and green. I turn into the restaurant parking lot, beneath an orange and green neon sign. As I do so, the car thumps through a big pothole wedged between the roadway and the driveway, and the tires toss up a sheet of water, whose dirty droplets sparkle briefly in the fluorescence of the parking lot lights, then fall back onto the asphalt, becoming once again muddy, oily water. I walk through the light rain and then along the building, under the eaves. I notice intertwining, endless ripples in the puddles along the sidewalk, as the steady drips of water find their way down from the edges of the overhanging roof.
I pull open the glass door and spot her, standing just beyond the doorway, near the dark-paneled wall, just having risen from the cushioned bench. Short blonde hair, wearing a green hooded sweatshirt, tennis shoes, and blue jeans, in many ways looking like the high school senior she is, yet also looking surprisingly small and slight for her 18 years. It still strikes me as odd that she got here by herself, instead of waiting for me to pick her up. Intellectually, I know she’s had her license since the day she turned 16 and has been driving regularly since then. But in my unguarded moments, she’s still a little girl, waiting for rides. I sometimes forget it’s been nearly eight years since she left, since she went to live with her mom. That’s a lot of time in a young life, and many changes have occurred, most without my knowing about them until later. Anyway, she’s here now, looking toward me with a nervous smile. This is an awkward moment for both of us. Despite the weekly phone calls and occasional weekend visits, it seems like forever since we talked openly, and most of the moments we have shared lately have been tinged by apprehension, frustration, and suppressed emotion. This is supposed to be an evening of resolution, an opportunity to wash away the residue of the past several years, to wipe the slate clean, to say a clear goodbye to the past and to open the way to new beginnings. I’m moving away, going 500 miles from here, so that even the illusion of resuming our shared lives must die. We’re here for a sort of last supper, a chance to say the right things and, maybe, to lay the groundwork for a better future.
It soon becomes obvious that everything isn’t going to be accomplished tonight. We greet each other awkwardly, and make small talk as we follow the server to a table by the windows. The words feel scripted, and we both recognize that the past adheres too tightly to be easily brushed aside. Having the waitress take our orders provides a welcome, but short, distraction. Once, during a silence that has grown too long, I turn and stare at the window, and watch a bead of water work its way down. I wonder, idly, why it doesn’t drop straight – what sort of imperfection in, or on, the glass causes it to wander like it goes? But it doggedly keeps pushing down, until it finally disappears below the windowsill. Likely it will drop into a puddle down there, and, before losing itself in the pool, will leave its mark in ever expanding ripples, perfect circles that reach nearly to the edges before losing energy and disappearing forever. I think that’s what will happen, but I don’t see it – and if no one sees that pattern, it’s like it never really existed.
“What are you looking at,” she asks, with a nervous edge to her voice. “Nothing,” I reply, with a slight laugh, “just looking.” From then on, things go better, the words flow more freely, we even laugh a little, sometimes without strain or restraint. At one point I remember an episode from my younger days, when I was her age, and I talk for awhile, then stop. “But enough about that,” I say, “nobody wants to hear a middle-aged man telling stories about things he once did.” “You’re wrong,” she says, “I do. I want to listen to your stories.” I look up, look at her, actually meeting her eyes for the first time that evening, probably for the first time in years, since our lives began flowing down separate channels. And I realized that she does want to hear these stories, she needs to hear them and, even more, I desperately want her to hear them. For her, they are an indication of her own beginnings, suggestions of where she comes from, evidence of the imperfections in our beings that may help to make sense of things to come. And, for me, for her to hear my stories gives meaning to my past. Otherwise, the incidents of my life are merely patterns that have never happened before and will never happen again, nothing more than random happenings in time, no more and no less than any other. The understanding and appreciation of people who care makes those moments, and makes me, special. And I realized that, no matter how much the stream of our shared being has broken into separate currents, she and I will always touch in some way. The blood that flows in her is half mine, and we are forever linked.
The evening goes on, the words working their way back through the lost years, the conversation ebbing and flowing until, suddenly, it’s time for us to part, each going to our separate homes, our separate lives. As we stand in the doorway, it becomes painfully clear that this evening has reached a moment of resolution, when something should be said, or done, to impose some meaning to this pattern. But nothing happens. Two hours of talk cannot undo eight years. Not all at once, anyway. We make awkward statements of goodbye, and exchange promises to write. The rain has picked up again, and I watch her dash to her car. The brakelights of her car flash through the semi-darkness, then the back-up lights, and the raindrops sparkle like diamonds. Her car backs around, pulls forward, and she’s gone.
As I drive home, I again notice water streaking and flowing down and across the windshield. I stop at a traffic light and watch the steady dripping of rainwater, off the little awning above the red light, the drips momentarily flashing crimson against the yellowish fluorescence of the streetlights. I realize I never hugged her goodbye. That would have been the defining moment, and I had let it slip away, like I had so many others. I wipe my hand across my face, pushing aside the few tears that have worked down my face, glad there’s no one here to see them. The light turns green, I step on the gas and move on. By now she’s probably halfway home.
posted by GrahamLewis at 6:27 AM
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