The Rhythm From My Porch

The Rhythm from my porch

Tire low of air, flap, flap, flap…does the driver realize he’s almost on the rim?

A ball game played in my neighbor’s yard…I’m half asleep on the porch, listening to a metal clang…the bat? A metal plate used as a base? The rhythm plays like music in its own way. I recognize Mario’s echoing laughter, and I smile…laughter with a real, a full joy in it. I hear Jose’s voice…a rather humorous lilt in how he makes his pronouncements…

 A group of wrens, massed around a ‘puddle’ of seeds fallen from a tree; they move almost as one, from the driveway apron to the drive, and then to the lilac bushes, flowers shed so long ago. As if prompted by the influx of wrens, a cardinal bursts from the bushes to a neighboring tree...one rhythmic note  affecting the other.

“F….him, I said, mother f’er….”, I heard the words, followed by laughter, words I can’t understand – is it a dialect, is it lazy speech, is it just that I don’t want to hear it…my cold eyes hold no power if the speakers don’t make eye contact with me. The raw, unwelcomed cursing is oddly rhythmic…its own music…is it?

Slap, slap, slap; rap, rap, rap; basketballs and rap music, both hitting the sidewalk. Rhythmic, too, are the glances….”Don’t look, Sage’ my 12 year old neighbor whispers to me. He’s Blood; don’t look.’ This, too, is a warning oft repeated to me. He’s Crypt, he’s Blood, He’s an 18…don’t do it, Sage.

You’re gay; am not; sure you are; laughter; some tension; the message not spoken now reveals who has been ripping on who today. You are, so I’m not. A day’s rhythm is coming to its end on the porch.  Kids are gathering, feeling safe to say what they wouldn’t on the street. We talk about ‘gay’. “You’ve met my son; he’s gay. You like him. You respect him. What’s different?

Karen boys bike by; chattering in a language we don’t understand. Marco mocks the unknown under his breath. Hey, I tell him, how was it when you came here and didn’t speak English? Did people mock your Spanish? How did you feel? The form of our conversation takes up a familiar rhythm, we’ve had it before about Hmong language and culture. It’s a rhythm that becomes, sadly, almost comfortable.

Weed wackers, lawn mowers, people calling to each other. Motors revving, missing mufflers, roaring motorcycles; planes in a no-fly zone, dismiss any shred of conversation.  Wait.

A scooter’s whirrrrrr; a Rainbow shopping cart, rumbles down the hill, child propelling child; in the background a car horn out of control, but in perfect rhythm.

And then, one Saturday morning, the world regains briefly, the rhythm of only birds, the sipping of early morning coffee, and the quiet turning of a book’s pages. I’m alone with my own rhythm.

9/2011

Summer annoyances and deep breaths

It was so unbearably hot yesterday, hitting 90 degrees, and I heard, the hottest day here on May 24 in 125 years. I do not deal well with humidity. After work I attended a Paint the Pavement meeting, wanting to repaint our not yet one year old intersection 'mural'. It's very badly faded into an inky wash. The PtP coordinator had not seen anything like it.

Later in the evening, around 10:30, I was upstairs at my computer when loud voices continued. At first I thought it was just neighbors on their front porch, but it became more disruptive, apparently yelling out to possible acquaintances driving by. I went out onto the downstairs porch - a quiet presence sometimes changes things. I sat out there for about 10 minutes as five or six young men and women stood on the corner talking, laughing - loud enough that with the hot night and close houses, the sound carries to the far inner reaches of the houses, when it's already too humid to sleep.

Deep breaths, practice voice tone in my head, rephrase introduction. I didn't know what mood or attitude I might receive and wanted to be careful about the attitude I gave. "Hi, I've got some pretzels here if any of you would like any..." The answer I received from a young man who said he was 25, was "Hi, how ya doin'? Are we being too loud?" "A bit, yes,' I explained Kyle works two jobs and three nearby houses have young kids who have to be up early for the school buses. We joked; I promised that yes, I'd share a glass of wine with him sometime, though I would still need to card him...' We joked about that and in a minute or two, they split up and walked toward their homes.

This past week, at the end of the day, and sometimes even mid-afternoon, I have felt shredded inside. We have in influx of so many kids who are unsupervised; music blaring from the apartment and the house across the street (doesn't everyone want to listen to the music I like?), cars with broken or no mufflers, taxis and friends beeping horns instead of using cell phones or their pick-ups watching for their rides, adults and kids yelling from one end of the street to the other, cars booming and rocking through the intersection, the neighbor two doors up who uses a power wash or electric tools from afternoon till late after dark, the woman across the street screaming at the man, the man apparently hitting the child and sometimes pounding his fist on the inside of the window (to scare Mel?). Then the visuals - the 19/20 year old who threw his plastic cup, filled with ice and covered, as high as he could and walked away from his litter; finding plastic bags of dog poop under a bush or hanging on the fence (glad you pick it up, people, but don't regift it to me!); picking up any kind of trash people don't want to carry around in their car;
and the cars that don't or barely even slow as they run the stop signs. I was watering the front flower beds at 6am and saw two go past...I didn't have my hose out far enough or I swear I would have got his car!! At various times I have counted 95 cars through the intersection in 45 minutes...this has been on weekends and any weekday evening.