And that's all i got to say about that. Now lemme tell you what i thought yesterday. Well, you don't actually have to lemme. With one click of the mouse you could be somewhere constructive, like facebook or the New York Times or checking your bank statement or buying something you didn't know you couldn't live without until you saw it on Amazon. For those masochists who chose to stay with the tour group however, gird your loins and follow me into the yesterday exhibit... if you dare.
The light is filtered and faded shades of yellow like an old photograph. Or maybe it's just reflected from all the avocado green, harvest gold and burnt orange. The air is still. The dust and smoke from a cigarette in the ashtray don't seem to move. They hang, heavy and listless and their only ambition is to penetrate your nose and make you sneeze. Somewhere there is music. Low, slow and maudlin. It could be a radio or it could be the melodramatic tension of a soap opera. It's not the only sound but you wish it was for the only other thing to be heard is the ticking of a clock. It chimes every fifteen minutes but it never seems to get any later. There are no friends here. No family. Just a stranger who is paid to keep you alive until your mother gets home tonight. And that is as much as they care about you. They may offer some dry crackers or a little juice but it's only out of obligation. There may be toys but they're mostly broken ones that the stranger's brat will deign to allow you to touch. Or worse, the stranger may have all girls. If there's a window not covered with leaden draperies, you can almost see your house. You certainly know you could walk there but you are forbidden. A prisoner awaiting release. Waiting.
Waiting.
To go home.
Waiting.
To do something fun.
Waiting.
To be allowed to make noise.
Or play.
Or watch something happy on the television.
Waiting.
For an overworked mother who still has to make dinner.
But at least she loves you.
Having trouble breathing yet? Yeah, me too, let's get the flock out of the yesterday exhibit.
Whew! Okay, everyone's respiration returning to normal? Good. You may be asking, with good reason, "What the fact was that about?" i will try to explain. That was a composite memory of mine. i had many babysitters and a daycare growing up and time and distance have not dulled the experience but it has blended much of them into this exhibit i describe. The daycare differed only in that it was like being in school for three or four more hours everyday, right down to the flickering fluorescents. One with a fence around it. But i could still look through the chainlink at my house and neighborhood and the field where my friends and i used to play army and hope that mom came to get me before the sun went down but my brother and i were often the last ones to be picked up. So what does this have to do with anything?
i'll tell you later.
