To Be Noticed Without Notification

Sometime January 2008
Today it was 10 below, and as I was gathering some wood for the stove, I happened to recall a time this past fall. It was just before dusk sometime in October, I was picking tiny apples from the trees just north of the house, the ones mixed in with giant cottonwoods. After sunset, and after I had snagged a shirt-full of them, I walked into the yard, sat on the ground, and reclined under the yard light. I was eating each tiny apple one bye one, then tossing them into the abyss of my dark yard. As I lay there heartily enjoying life I distinctly remember thinking how much I wanted someone to drive up to the house and find me there, laying on my back in the middle of my yard, looking up at my stars.

I wanted someone to drive up and see me enjoying life. I wanted someone to be compelled to enjoy my life with me. Secretly, I wanted Johannah to drive up, though I knew it couldn’t happen for she new nothing of where I lived or of what I was doing. That is what I wanted then, however. If I could’ve directed that moment, Johannah would’ve driven up the driveway, sauntered over to that yard-light light, laid on the downy grass with me and eaten tiny apples. Johannah and I, enjoying life, looking up at my stars.

It brings to mind a time that I, as a young boy, was again laying on the bendable grass of my yard gazing at the daytime, blue sky. Dreaming probably, imagining something grandiose, lost in the wonderment of my own playful ideas. I was under the canopy of our bounding willow trees. It was one of the few times I can recall feeling as though my dad was concerned about me in my youth. Dad was at the house and he called my name, I bent my neck fully to see him from half a world away and yelled…“yeah?”.

“Never mind.” he said.

It took a few minutes for me to realize that my dad was only making sure I wasn’t passed out, or dead. Even then, I think, I wanted someone to lay there with me and enjoy my life. “Dad, why don’t you come over here, lay down, and look up and the daytime, blue sky with me?”. I don’t want to be the only one that enjoys my life, I should be shared with somebody.

I want to be noticed without having to notify.