Barefoot, with toenails painted & fingers not, sporting jogging shorts and a black sabbath tank, the dog days of summer were upon us.
The fire engine red polish winked back up at the sun, as did the wet, wavy tinsel some 30 feet below.
The iron tubing that served as the top bar on the safety railing was as hot as an iron skillet ready for batter.
With both arms behind me, I gripped the bar with one hand, then the other. Playing hot potato.
'David did it.'
'Yeah, so did Will. He said it was fun.'
'A lot of people have done it.'
'I heard it's a rush man.'
'Are you gonna do it?'
'Yeah, I'll probably go for it....you?'
'I don't know...looks pretty scary.'
I say nothing and notice that the iron tube seems to be cooling under my palms.
A 1965 white T-bird convertible pulls up and Billy bellows out...
'Skinny! What the phuck are you doing?!'
'Just hanging out'
A horn honks...pulling away, Billy barks 'Hang on! Lemme park this beast.'
Before he can run up the incline of the bridge, a 79 Spyder comes driving past.
It's Steve.
Steve who is 3 years older than me.
Steve who has delicious blue eyes that seem to dance when I'm around.
Steve who surfs & smokes pot & makes me stomach do flips.
Steve who bangs a U-turn when he sees me.
Steve who came back around and stops just in time to see Tracey pull my jogging shorts down to my ankles.
Steve who saw me instinctively let go off both bars to pull my bottoms back up.
Steve who saw me do what no one else there had done.
Plunge 30' feet down off the bridge and into the open salty waters below.
Sometimes...in life, if we don't jump or get pushed, we simply fall to where we are meant to be.
'Last One Standing' Outsider Hippie Art By Sister Singleton
Posts
7 years ago
16 comments:
And in that one moment, free falling, everyone up above holding their breath harder and longer than even you did.... you did the other thing that no one else there had done before....
Landed exactly where you were supposed to....
by fate or chance....
And 25 years later....
the ripple effect is still happenin'.....
Much love, sweet sister love!
You had me at Black Sabbath tank :)
I was always the plunge in type... too hard to sit and ponder, too much time to chicken out...you go girl! ... we always get where we are going, just sometimes we get there sooner... or later...
Singleton... Lol, I think the boys (and Tracey for that matter) thought they were exactly where they were supposed to be at that very moment. ;) hahahaha...the first of many jumps.
Hammer...funny, today I cleaned out my clothes (not spring cleaning, more like annual cleaning) and I came upon some old, old concert shirts, a long sleeve ocean pacific & such from yesteryear...and even though, I was 'passing the trash' I held on to those.
Shimmerings...lol, last week I took a girlfriend & her daughters to the river. There's a jumping hole, free from rocks and relatively deep...but along with that comes teeth-chattering cold water. Lol, in order to get the girls to go for it...I had to take the plunge. My hair grew an inch and my lungs shrunk up to the size of an acorn...as did the girls, right behind me. Their heaving water-spewing grins were so well worth it! I think we could all probably agree it's best to let go and/or take that plunge than to be pushed.
Lucky you and lucky Steve to have had that oppourtunity with you.
Jump or sink, I can dig it ;)
Is sister Singy's artwork in this post for sale?
Much <3!
very cool story . . . liked the imagery . . . particularly the delicious blue eyes that seem to dance when you're around . . . it's nice when eyes appear to do that in your presence . . .
paz y sonrisas, skinny . . .
:-)
<---deep end of the pool kinda gal...whether she can swim or not--irrelevant.
I sure would have wanted to,,,but not so sure I could have.
Of course, you didn't get the choice,,,taking into consideration the shorts and all,,,still,,,,,,,,
What were you thinking on the way down?
Orhan...I am afraid that Sing's pic has long been sold, but I promise I will double check over the week-end and get back with you on it. I think I was the lucky one on the jumping biz, as I didn't get too much time to forebode over it...lol.
Oceans...Dancing eyes always make me smile...my grandmothers eyes always danced...just to different tunes with different folks...
peace & smiles to you, shaman
mel...lol, luckily I learned the lessons of sink or swim quite young. Stay or go came later...;)
wilsons...lol, I was gonna do it anyway. I was perched on the outer side of the guard rail. When my britches got yanked I remember catching a glimpse of Tracey, smiling devilishly, and I don't recall what I thought on the way down, but I remember that the velocity of me hitting the water pulled my shorts the rest of the way up. (She got me good...to the ankles & by the time I hit the water they still weren't quite up)
Ya can't ease into cold water, ya just gotta jump! I remember all the crazy things I did in the water when I was young. I work on the Canal (tour guide) and swimming isn't allowed, but of course, that doesn't stop them. And I remember. Fearlessness. It's getting harder and harder to find places where one can do things like that, today... jumping off cliffs, etc. while remaining safe... and legal... used to be ya could find a cold swimming hole just about anywhere, even if it was on private property. Nowadays, because of the legal system... and people not being responsible for their own kids (wanting to blame someone else) people put up signs. Just yesterday I was doing surveys at the Canal. A group of kids were there jumping in. One father came out. He told her it was illegal, I told him she could get a ticket... I told him where she could swim, legally. He spoke on the phone with one of the girl's mother. He left. He didn't take his with him.I told the kids where they could swim legally. Hours later, the other parent shows up. She's really upset. The kids shouldn't be there. She's grumbling that they are allowed to even be there, it's dangerous, though she, too, is beyond the gate that was closed, but whieh they all entered. She asks her daughter who I am (in an angry voice)... she says I am doing surveys. The mother leaves in her vehicle (which was beyond the allowed parking zone, as well)... you could see her face as she sped away. She was upset her daughter was there, yet she left without her... she is just the sort who would sue somebody if her daughter got hurt. She was more angry that her daughter was allowed to be there, than she was that her daughter was there. In short, she wanted someone else to do her job, as a mother... someone else to run her daughter off, because she couldn't/wouldn't be the heavy. I had no authority there (I didn't even work in that area, I was just doing surveys)... but I remembered... and I gave them cold water to drink.
Aw :(
Feel in love with it as soon as I'd seen it.
I am anxious to hear your recounting of the sensations that you were aware of as you traversed those fractions of seconds between guard rail and water.
Lovingly ...
>I hope that all of you that make this hateful and reckless comments about Heath burn blissfully in hell. It's so classy of you to take the plunge on him now that he can't fight back... Really brave!
>Yeah... Awesome.... Just fucking burn in hell. All of you, motherfuckers!
>
Shimmerings...Lol, I hear ya girl! A few weeks back I found a jumping rope along the river...and before long 5 boys came with their father, who said it's where he, too, had jumped, as a youngun'...gotta love the country! ;)
Orhan...It's actually just a snappit of a larger image.
John Michael...lol, it went very quick & was a long time ago...hahaha, but I can still recall Tracey's devilish grin!
AnonSpammer... shoo!fly!shoo!
This is just beautifully written,
Skinny, you're gonna me think me some kind of crazy lunatic... but I had this dream where I wrote this poem and you read it... In the dream it was called 'the ninth life'
So today i wrote a poem called the ninth life... and for what its worth - its on my blog.
Lots of love, M
"Sometimes...in life, if we don't jump or get pushed, we simply fall to where we are meant to be."
oh! i love that, and the whole story.. as if i was write there,
"to jumping! falling! getting wet!" love, ~s.
Post a Comment