homecoming

I look at them, the young adults, the forerunners of our world, impossibly stylish, drunken, arms around each other, eyes turned upward at the stars.  They are laughing and the cold of the night or the seriousness of life does not affect them, does not even exist for they are robust and invincible.  I remember what it felt like, to sparkle and feel your shine lighting up the world.They are the coddled college cocoon slice of the american pie, polished and fabulous, and I am on my way to buy diapers, baby food, and coffee.  Leaving youth behind, I will trawl the baby food aisle in search of the best food-for the best deal.  When it comes down to the broccoli-spinach-pear versus the apple-squash-carrot, when one is priced at four for five dollars but the other is six ounces larger...Wait, the apple-squash one is organic, okay that's settled.   I like the squishy-squeezepack-impact sound it makes when i throw a bunch of them in the cart.  After paying I'll go over to the  Redbox, hoping they'll have something better than the standard industry knockoffs that overwhelm this age of throwaway filmmaking.   If they don't, I will rent the best looking of these which will star the a hunk and a babe, or several babes and occasionally two hunks, it will reference obliquely some historical or mythical event or perhaps create a future one, there will be battles, a war, an unsatisfying love scene, it will have an ending you have seen i-don't-know-how-many times but the actors will play it with such conviction.  Is it weird that i put the Redbox movie in my pants pocket after I get it?  I often feel like a quasi-criminal, even though its obvious I have paid for the thing.  Nobody has a Redbox movie without paying for it, everybody knows that.  I will walk away every time feeling a slight sense of guilt about supporting a big corporate monster like Redbox, then reminding myself not to go too far down that road of cynicism about everything lest I end up the rotten old curmudgeon, living alone, yard overgrown, he was too down on life to enjoy it-I raise my head high and walk out of Safeway.   I will get back in the car and drive back through downtown, through the youngsters and their tricks, the girls stumbling out in front of the car in their heels, "Oh my god you just stepped out in front of a car!"  All her friends laugh and pull her by the arm, "Sorry!  Get back on the sidewalk!"  While I'm three-quarters of the way home I remember that I was supposed to buy avocados.  The girls can easily chow through two of them in a day, relishing their soft, fatty meat.  With all the Omega 3s and 6s, i can practically see their brains growing as they inhale their unseasoned guacamole, wiping it across their faces and brows like novice food warriors.  What to do?  There are no more grocery stores between here and home...Would 7-11 have avocados?  No.  I start thinking about the cost of my carbon emissions vs. the need to have avocados for the girls the next morning.  I make a U-turn.

In not long I will be home, which is at this point the four upstairs bedrooms of a house in the south Eugene hills, a beautiful, rolling, wooded portion of Eugene where the city starts to let up and the houses start to make friendly with the forest.  On my drive home I watch all the faces of Eugene go by my window; the train-hoppers with their tattered old factory clothes and welding goggles, usually surrounded by dogs of unknown heritage, begging for change, a ride, work, anything helps; the U of O students with their nice haircuts, out in their jammie pants and no shoes on the sidewalk, watching Glee on their iPhones and texting about it with their aunts while chewing gum and heading over to the Thai restaurant, 4 sum k1ck @$$ pad tha1, #yummers;  Then the sweet seniors, the churchgoing elders of the town who are all smiles and good news ambling down the sidewalk, smiling at me as i drive by.  Lets not forget the circle of 90s throwbacks in their baggy corduroys, playing hacky sack in front of the bus stop with such enthusiasm you'd think they'd just discovered the game, emitting a shock wave of patchouli-odor through my car window even as i cruise by at 45 mph.

Then slowly it all goes away, the people and the shops and I am driving quietly over hills and dales, through glades and glens under the soft glow of streetlights till finally I head up that last hill, take that left, put the car in neutral as it slowly glides down the curve and rests in front of the house where the most beautiful bunch of people in the world are waiting for me, and some of them are hungry.  I must hurry.