Get off my lawn: Memories of childhood
Writing is hard. I don’t consider myself brilliant or talented in this regard. Admitting one has a problem is always the first step.
Sometimes when I write entries, such as the one before this, I don’t have any clear reason for writing. For that I apologize. I don’t even care about my day, except for the rare, amusing story of which you will surely hear. But other than that, sometimes I am just writing down, like a laundry list, everything that happens. That’s so fucking boring. Who cares if i went to a bar. Get to the meat Mike.
With that in mind, I don’t plan on writing putrid or insipid shit in this thing any longer. I want to write things that interest me, and hopefully through that, you. And it’s going to start with a memory that I had from childhood that was recently brought up while walking to Old Town.
I was passing the Pasadena theater with Katie when i saw the play “Of Mice and Men.” Now I’ve never read the book, but i have seen the film with John Malkovich, when I was 9 years old (1992, for those keeping score). Being so young, innocence was plentiful and easy to come by. Things were black and white, right and wrong, and much simpler. People say times used to be simpler; I think that’s just how we remember them when there weren’t 401K’s and bills to worry about. before i go off on a tangent, let me get to the meat.
The movie opens with, if memory serves me right, the two men, Lennie and George, escaping from prison to a small depression era town. This is pretty much where my memory gives way to imagination; I recall they wanted to have there own land with rabbits and other animals. This idea always calmed Lennie down, and in turn I could relate to him. We were both children.
Anyways, the movie continues, and Lennie fatally hurts one of the girls in the town. There is a man hunt and George and Lennie once again escape the city to the country, but there is no safety here this time. So George, to calm Lennie, asks him about the rabbits. As Lennie is finishing up, George shoots Lennie in the head.
And then the flood gates open. I cried louder and harder than I can remember in any other point in my life. I remember it so vividly- salt running from my eyes for hours, my mother trying to comfort me, and my dad being out of town. I might be exaggerating, which we tend to do as children, but I cried for three days straight on this one. That gun shot completely robbed me of my innocence. I still get sad when I think about it; I’m kind of misty right now.
Poor, little Mike.
This is the one story that is as true as I remember it. There are other stories of childhood, like the one where I accidentally hit a friend with a shovel, or throwing snowballs at our neighbors cars- all of them taller tales. Probably more exciting, too. They are the kind of stories that you’d see in a kids movie, not some child crying in the theater.
What’s more interesting about this story is its rawness. Pure emotion - something I really don’t feel anymore - that left a lasting impression on me. Ever since those days it’s been more worries, concerns, and fears. Mapping out my entire life. And I’ve always fretted about that as well. Metaconcerns. Reflexive fear. But, reading something yesterday, made me think of things anew.
Life is like driving. You don’t need to see your destination to get there. All you need is the road and you go. You drive. Sometimes you see no further than 4 feet in front of your car; fog, storms, flat tires: they all happen. But we weather it, forgive the pun, and keep going. Life is the same thing. The destination might be further, we might not know exactly where we are going, but we do know the general direction we should going. All we need to do is drive.
“There ain’t many guys travel around together. I don’t know why. Maybe everybody in the whole damn world’s scared of each other.”